Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee Session I - 112122

We are recording.

Thank you very much, son.

Good morning, everyone.

Today is Monday, November 21st, 2022, and I'm Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the Select Budget Committee.

The committee will come to order.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold.

Council President Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Councilmember Nelson, present.

Councilmember Peterson, present.

Councilmember Salant, present.

Councilmember Strauss, present.

Chair Mosqueda, present.

Eight, present.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

we will have a opportunity throughout the day, it's going to be a long day, for us to discuss the initial balancing package as posted online and shared with members of the public last Monday.

We will have an opportunity to consider amendments to this initial balancing package throughout the course of today.

The amendment has been, the agenda has been organized in four categories, groups A, B, C, and D, which we will describe briefly in a moment.

We will, however, start with 90 minutes of public comment at the beginning to make sure that we hear from members of the public about the proposed amendments that have been suggested.

Before we get started, I want to make sure that we put the agenda in front of us because there are a few procedural changes that we will need to consider before adopting the agenda.

I will move the agenda to make sure that it's in front of us to make these procedural changes.

I move to adopt the agenda for today.

Is there a second?

agenda item.

Is there a second?

second.

Thank you very much.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda.

Today's published agenda is before the select committee.

This is an opportunity for councilmembers to move to amend agenda items by adding agenda items to the docket.

This is not the opportunity for us to pull agenda items out.

We will have a items as proposed amendments or substitutes in the form of a council budget action or a statement of legislative intent that are not already published on today's agenda.

As a reminder, non-substantive oral amendments to an existing proposal on the agenda may be considered at the point of an agenda item is before the committee.

That does not require a move today, but substantive oral amendments that represent a new idea or mutually exclusive option.

For example, if the original CBA and the proposed amendment, proposed oral amendment conflict, then that would be considered a new walk-on amendment that did not meet the rule for distribution by 5 p.m.

on the preceding business day.

The committee may consider substantive oral amendments with the suspension of the rules.

And again, a suspension of the rules will be considered in a moment as we consider a walk-on amendment as well.

I do know that there are a few amendments that have been circulated, those were circulated before 5 p.m.

the day before our, the business day before this committee meeting, meaning Friday, November 18th at 5 p.m., the following amendments were circulated to the floor.

This includes my own amendment, Mosqueda D-E-E-L, this includes councilmember that is not on today's agenda and you would like it to be considered today, we can still amend the agenda.

As I noted, the rules require circulation by 5 p.m.

on the business A vote to add these items to the calendar today is not necessarily a vote of support.

It is simply a procedural motion at this point.

Again, I'm aware of these three amendments that were circulated prior to the 5 p.m.

deadline on Friday, November 18th.

So as a courtesy to these colleagues, I will move all three of these amendments.

I move that the agenda be amended to add deal 603B-001.

This is a substitute for agenda item 172, which is deal 603A.

Also, SPR walk-on one.

this is a new option for office of housing 600A001.

This is a substitute for item 191 that will be at the end of group D.

And HSD walk on one, the new item circulated by Councilmember Nelson before the close of business on Friday, this would be considered as part of group D.

I move that the agenda be amended to add these three items and that these items be placed after consideration on the corresponding voting group.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Thank you, Councilmember.

It's been moved and seconded to amend today's agenda by adding the above three we're going to move on to the next item on the agenda.

We're going to move on to the next item on the agenda.

We're going to move on to the next item on the agenda.

We're going to move on to the next item on the agenda.

We're going to move on to the next item on the agenda.

We're going to move on to the next item on the agenda.

We're going to move on to the next item on the agenda.

We're going to move on to the next item on the agenda.

We're going to move on to the next item on the agenda.

We're going to move on to the next item on the agenda.

We're going to move on to the next item on the agenda.

hearing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of the amendment to include these three substitute items that were circulated prior to 5 p.m.

the preceding business day?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

I second that motion.

Councilmember Sawant?

I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comment.

The amendment is HSD 904A-001.

As you'll see in the attached agenda, excuse me, I will hold that comment for a second.

I would like to have colleagues consider this amendment as a substitute for those two and have worked with the I move to suspend the council rules to allow for consideration of this amendment.

I will move to put this in front of us.

Again, a vote to suspend the rules here is not an indication of support for this amendment, nor is this a vote to adopt it in our budget.

This is purely a procedural of amendment HSD020C001 to include on the agenda because it was not distributed by 5 p.m.

the preceding business day.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, council members.

It has been moved and seconded to suspend the rules.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the suspension of the rules.

Procedural motion only.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Morales.

Yes.

Councilmember Nelson.

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson.

Yes.

Councilmember Salant.

Yes.

Councilmember Strauss.

Yes.

the motion carries.

I have a motion and a second.

All in favor?

None opposed.

Thank you, colleagues.

The motion carries and the rules are suspended and we can proceed with consideration of the amendments to the agenda.

Again, this is an agenda that I circulated this morning in partnership with Councilmember Strauss.

This is to add HSD-020C-001 to the second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded.

For discussion, Council Member Herbold.

No?

Okay.

Thank you.

Again, colleagues, thanks for taking the time to add this to the agenda.

We'll talk more about this this afternoon.

This is in an interest in making sure that we did not have to choose between HSD 904 investments and HSD 020 investments, and appreciate the vice chair's flagging of possible options here along with the sponsor, Council Member Straus.

Colleagues, thanks for considering this as part of the agenda.

Are there any additional comments on the agenda?

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

Oops, excuse me, Council Member Lewis.

We are at the point of considering adoption of HSD020C.

Council Chair Misguided, this is just a point of inquiry.

After we make these final alterations, would it be possible for the clerks to recirculate the amended agenda given the changes that we have made?

No big deal if not, but I'm just curious.

I will pause there one second to see if central staff has an answer.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Good morning, Council Members.

For the record, Alec Tannucci of your Council Central Staff.

We will not be able to recirculate an amended agenda, but we will, as we get to each group, be reminding Council Members of items that have been added for, like, for individual consideration or substitution.

So we will remind you at each stage of the way, but the agenda is going to continue to evolve as you get through the day.

And so we won't be able to update it in real time.

No worries.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis, and I will do my best as well to remind folks about the items that we've added to the end of those groups.

Council Member Herbold?

Thank you.

I also have a procedural question, if I could.

I think under the mistaken impression that items that we are now, in this moment, adding to the agenda are new items, not substitutes.

But I've been hearing them described as substitutes for other versions, which now is making me wonder.

I have a substitute in voting group C.

Should I move?

to have that added to the agenda.

I'm going to pull one of the items already in group C for another version.

I believe the answer is no, because it is going to be teed up as an oral amendment, and we really appreciate that you did the early work to share that information with members of the community in advance, but that is not substantive in nature and does not need to be added to today's agenda.

You can make that motion when we get to that item.

that's a good sign.

Thank you.

Thank you, vice chair.

And I'm seeing a thumbs up from the deputy director, so that's always a good sign when we're getting into the procedural motions at this hour of the day.

All right, colleagues, thanks again.

Just for the point of reference, we are at the point of amending the agenda by including HSD020C as a possible substitute for today's

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council President Morales.

Aye.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda.

I have a motion and a second.

All in favor?

None opposed.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries and the agenda is amended.

If there's no objection to today's agenda as amended, the amended agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection to today's amended agenda, the amended agenda is adopted.

All right, colleagues, thank you so much for helping to get the agenda in front of us today.

As a reminder, we will have at least 90 minutes of public comment.

I'm aware that there was a delay in the online setup for getting folks to register online.

In order for us to make sure that we give a few more minutes for people to be able to sign up and the full two hours, I do have a few comments just to get us started here as folks may be still filling in the online form.

As a reminder, all amendments today, including oral amendments, need to be self-balancing.

We have put together a consent agenda package for you that includes groups B and group C.

Group B is the heart of the chair's balancing package.

And group C also includes amendments that we've possibly discussed in the past that are seen favorable and complementaries to some of the the chair's balancing package.

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to make sure that we have a balanced budget.

We have to make sure that we have a balanced budget.

Today is the last day that we can make amendments to the balancing package and thus why it was so important to make sure that amendments that were being considered were self-balancing.

If a council member is interested in pulling an item that requires an additional fund or funding source, this will not be taken lightly So there is no time to go back to the drawing board for large ticket items that don't have funding associated.

We do not have the ability to find money that does not exist.

Today is to consider amendments that are self-balancing.

And as noted in our communication on the process, we need this information last week so that we can work with central staff to ensure that self-balancing amendments are part of our deliberations today.

So I will not be shy about noting when or if an action attempts to move forward an amendment that does not have a funding source.

And if you have not found a way to balance for an increase that you want, then we need to make sure that we are addressing that in the moment that it's being pulled up.

To repeat, you do not have to pull an item just to speak against it.

I don't know if I've already said that, so apologies.

Let me say this again.

When we get to the actual agenda, and we start going through the consent package items in groups B and C.

Colleagues, if there's pieces that you do not like, you don't have to pull an item out just to speak against it.

If there's also pieces that you really like, that you sponsor, that you want to highlight for members of the community and the media, you can speak to it without having to pull it out.

Pulling out an amendment means that we we will have an opportunity for a vote, but please note that it is not an opportunity for just pulling out an amendment to speak to it.

You will have a chance to speak to any items in groups B and C before we take a final vote.

Please consider when we get to groups B and C that pulling things out merely to speak in favor or opposed, especially if you do not have a way to make it self-balancing, is highly discouraged and not what today is for.

We can revisit the process for voting on these amendments and the grouping we're going to be able to do that.

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We're going to We were faced with a $141 million operating deficit and a $152 million operating deficit in the years 2023 and 2024. We then were hit with an additional $87 million shortfall combined over the biennium, and we were having to look at serious reductions in projects and services.

But instead of taking cuts or going through an austerity budget, we looked at ways to slow down new programs or initiatives, taking haircuts instead of whole cuts, preventing austerity and preventing layoffs.

some of the councilmembers' priorities were not funded, but that is not an indication of not having support from councilmembers or the public.

This is just a matter of having to balance within our existing revenue.

And as I've talked about before, this also continues to underscore the need for existing progressive revenue so that we can continue to meet our growing needs in the growing population throughout Seattle.

What we were able to do in the balancing package is important.

We were able to fund key services, avoid budgetary layoffs, prevent against austerity, and do so through short-term use, temporary measures, in large part due to the flexibility of the Jump Start Seattle Progressive Payroll Tax, higher than anticipated revenue.

What we tried to do in this budget was also make sure that we were not going down new policy routes that We have to make sure that we don't have unnecessary yielded policy changes or shifts or permanent policy changes to fund sources in the middle of a possible recession.

We prioritize working families and small businesses.

who need to remain stably housed, who need to find affordable housing, who need assistance and care and support if they're experiencing homelessness.

This is a budget that is in support of small businesses and supports basic needs like food security, specifically food security funding that was at risk when we saw the sugary sweetened beverage tax stream reduce.

This also makes upstream investments, investments in gun violence reduction strategies and mental health funding, as well as investing in reproductive health and justice.

We put the budget together with an eye towards equity, not equal distribution of funds, with an eye towards equity.

As the mayor commented on, we went through, and this council looked at ways where we needed to provide that equity lens to ensure the greatest impact with the scarce resources that we had.

We push forward funding to preserve programs, to promote health and safety, and the resilience of our community and our economy.

And I'm excited about some of the things that we have been able to include in this budget, and I look forward to this discussion today about amendments to add to those.

As a baseline understanding for this amendment, in affordable housing, we have $253 million in just next year alone, which grows in 2024. Specifically, through an equity lens, $18 million of the Jump Start Community Self-Determination Funds goes to removing barriers and supporting capacity building, land acquisition, building affordable housing, and developing that affordable housing through the eyes of folks who've been most impacted by displacement.

That includes funding that goes directly to the Filipino Community Center of Seattle, El Centro de la Raza, Skipta PDA, Mount Zion, and even more communities that have been hardest hit by the impacts of displacement.

That's what the Community Self-Determination Fund is for, and that's what's baked into the affordable housing investments from JumpStart in this budget.

$7 million goes to JumpStart home ownership funds specifically to support permanent affordable home ownership opportunities across our city.

I've been to at least D1 and D6 recently and seen those dollars in action where families are moving into new affordable first-time home ownership opportunities across our city.

This budget invested over 20 million a year in jumpstart equitable development initiatives, investments to support community-driven projects in communities most at risk of displacement to advance economic opportunity, prevent displacement and meet community needs with development that includes things like housing, childcare, space for small business and cultural and community space.

I'm talking about places like African Women Business Alliance, Black and Tan Hall in Hillman City.

Duwamish Longhouse, Ethiopian Village in Southeast Seattle, Innovation Learning Center at the Filipino Community Center.

This budget includes over $20 million each year in Green New Deal funding, including investments that will support communities disproportionately impacted by climate change who have done the least to contribute to climate change and are experiencing the worst effects of climate injustice.

This includes funding to create climate resilience hubs, investments in the environmental justice fund, funding for indigenous-led sustainability and resilience projects, funding to support the green workforce development and business support for the Duwamish Valley community, investments led by and asked for from the Green New Deal Oversight Board, investments in healthy, resilient tree canopies with a focus on underserved communities and most impacted by environmental injustice, including a Chief Arborist position to oversee implementation of the Tree Equity and Resilience Plan and tree planting in the city right away for underserved communities, funding to convert low-income homeowners off of oil to electric heat, and funding to transition heavy-duty diesel vehicles to electric.

which disproportionately impacts communities of color.

And finally, in transportation, even with the real estate excise tax depletion, we were able to put money towards projects like Vision Zero, $8 million going into projects like Rainier Avenue South, safety improvements, traffic calming on Seward Park South, additional improvements in Columbia and Hillman City, South Holgate, improvements to the south end of the street.

We're also looking at improvements to the north end of the street, street safety improvements, funding to advance the Georgetown to South Park Trail yet again this year.

Safe routes to schools, sidewalk improvements, funding for accessible Mount Baker implementation, biking and walking improvements to help people get to transit center and light rail station, especially in the south end.

And what we are going to see today is a conversation around amendments to that initial balancing package.

What folks in community and the council members want to see in the final budget will be the result of today's deliberations.

The amendments that we will discuss today will compile the final budget action.

Monday's vote next week is purely technical.

After central staff to get the chance to do one more technical analysis and quality review.

So remind ourselves and the community, today is the day for final votes.

And thank you all.

I believe no matter what the amendments were, council members are advancing ideas that they truly believe are beneficial to their constituents, for the health of the city.

And voting yes or no on amendment is not necessarily an indication of whether that amendment was a good idea.

But at this point, we also need to consider whether it balances and if it's creating greater stability for the city in the future.

At the end of the day, there will be a number of projects and ideas that are good ideas.

Perhaps they don't have funding in this budget, and that is why I look forward to additional progressive revenue that we can rely on in the upcoming biannual discussion for the next budget.

Without it, we create greater instability, and I hope, colleagues, that what you've seen is, yes, tough choices, but choices that invest in creating stability for our budget and for our residents.

I'm going to turn it over to central staff to see if you have anything else to add before we go to public comment and we can come back to you at item one if you prefer.

Okay.

We'll come back to you at item one.

I see deputy director nodding.

the online forum signed up until just after 8 a.m., so I wanted to give folks a full two hours to sign up for that, and Madam Clerk, I think I'll just read the instructions instead of doing the video this morning.

Colleagues, thanks again for providing public comment.

We've now had three public hearings and nine committee meetings, so you know the drill, but I will make sure that you all get a chance to hear it.

We have to stick to a 90-minute public comment today, so that will take us to 1130. We have over 140, 155 people signed up combined in the room and online.

So I am going to make sure that we get through everybody by asking for you to shave 15 seconds off of your public comment, and we will do 45 seconds.

We've done that in the past years.

but haven't had to do that so far this year.

We've all gone with either two minutes or one minute.

So 45 seconds, please.

That way we can hear from everybody who's present and everybody who is on the line.

You will hear a chime, ding, when you have 10 seconds to wrap it up, whether you're in person or on the phone.

And the first 10 speakers will be called remotely, and then the next 10 people will be in person.

You are welcome to send us the remainder of your talking points if you don't get through it at council at Seattle.gov.

I'm going to be putting my mask back on after I speak.

and I encourage folks in the room to please put your masks on as well after you finish speaking.

As a reminder for folks in the room, there is no applauding or booing.

We need to make sure that all public comment is treated the same given our online format.

If you like something that you're hearing in the room and want to express your support for it, please do put your hands up like this to show support in lieu of clapping.

I really want everybody to have a chance to speak.

So thank you for sticking to your time.

For folks calling in, please make sure that you disconnect and dial in on the listen in line or continue watching on Seattle Channel.

And again, for folks online, you will hear you have been unmuted.

That is your indication you need to hit star six and make sure your own phone is not on mute.

At this point, we will go into public comment, Madam Clerk, and if you could read the first 10 folks online, and then we'll go 10 folks in the room, and we will get through everyone.

Thank you, everyone, for your patience.

Thank you.

The first 10 speakers, number one is Tanya Wu, followed by Chris Woodward, Emily McCarthy, Corey Crocker, Tiffany McCoy, Eric Fisk, Tess Wendell, Barbara Finney, and Kaylee Baldwin.

Oh, thank you, Madam Clerk.

Thank you for doing that.

I did say 10 people.

Thank you.

We can do one or two at a time if you'd like, but yes, we will do those first 10, and then we'll go to the folks in the room.

All right, our first speaker is Tanya Wu.

Hi, my name is Tanya Wu.

Oh, hi, my name is Tanya Wu.

I'm with Friends of the Cheyenne County National District, and we know we've been coming to council meetings.

We've provided public comments for five of these meetings.

We met with many council members, And, you know, we're imploring for help regarding public safety because, you know, street calming, community centers, bike lanes are great, but when people are too afraid to go outside, that's a bit of a problem.

And so basically all that the CID is be able to get from this budget are two social workers that the Friends of Little Saigon Working Group has been working with regarding navigation center.

So we have over 20 shelters in the area.

So we want to hope for restoring funding for lead and co-lead, restore funding for anti-Asian hate, and also restore funding for unified care team, and demanding transparency and accountability for QCHRA, especially for the $55 million lease on the Sodo expansion hub shelter area.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Chris Woodward.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Chris Woodward.

I'm the community development director with the Alliance for Pioneer Square.

Providing comments today to urge you to restore funding in the amount of $3.5 million in 2023 for City Hall Park.

This funding is critical to ensure we move forward and create a safe and welcoming environment in a fragile space.

For over a year, the Alliance, along with the Coalition of Parks and Public Space Advocates, engaged you, the Seattle City Council, and King County Council to keep City Hall Park under city ownership.

This coalition supports Mayor Harrell's $2.8 million investment proposed investment in City Health Park to support activation, capital improvement, and further design and planning.

Yeah, given the complexity and scale and the impact upon your square's environment, it's prudent to fund this service.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Emily MacArthur.

Hi, my name is Emily.

I'm a renter in District 2. I want to call into object to an austerity budget.

Democratic council members, including self-described progressives, are prepared to vote yes on cutting Green New Deal funding, renter organizing, tiny houses, and raises for human service workers.

You can't call that anything but austerity.

It's not a haircut.

I also object to the idea that a budget can exist on good vibes.

Votes matter.

Elected council members have the ability to vote to increase the Amazon tax instead of cutting vital programs for working class people.

I urge all Democrats to vote yes on Council Member Sawant's $140 million increase of the Amazon tax to stave off these cuts.

This is a choice that you have, and we will hold you accountable to it.

Vote yes to increase the Amazon tax and put $3.5 million to fund abortion.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I apologize.

Let me just interrupt real quick.

I just want to make sure that I'm looking at the full list of the folks who signed up to present online because I had heard there was 140 folks signed up and I'm only seeing 46. IT can you confirm I'm looking at the right sheet?

Affirmative.

Okay, I apologize to Tanya Wu, Chris Woodward, and Emily MacArthur.

If you'd like to call back in, we can give you another 45 seconds and we will, let's see here.

And we will do two minutes, the full two minutes that folks have had in the past.

Apologies again to Tanya Wu, Chris Woodward, and Emily MacArthur.

If you'd like to dial back in, we will give you a minute and 15 seconds back for folks in the room.

You can have two minutes.

That I think still allows for us to hear from everybody who's online and the folks in the room.

So apologies for the confusion.

We'll do two minutes going forward.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Our next speaker is Corey Crocker.

Good morning, I am Cory Crocker 30 year resident and small business owner and the current president of the district Community Council.

We asked you to please approve Councilmember Peterson's budget item of 1.5 million to make the crossing over I five on Northeast 45th Street, say for all modes, all ages and all abilities.

The proposed addition of safety fencing is a trade off between the convenience of drivers coming through our neighborhoods, and the locals who choose to or need to bike or roll over the bridge.

The bridge connects the Wallingford Urban Village to the U-District Urban Center with its business core, university campus, and to the third busiest station in the Link light rail system.

For many of us, there is no alternative other than detouring a mile north to Northeast 65th, or a half mile south, plus 150 gains to the Birken trail.

The good news is that SDOT and WSDOT are in agreement on the project.

It has been extensively modeled and is shovel ready.

It just requires this essential funding.

You will recall that the safe crossing over I-5 was an explicit promise in the 2015 move Seattle levy.

And we need the solution now.

So many of our fellow neighbors community and advocacy organizations are united in support of the project.

We encourage you to read the personal anecdotes from 600 plus signatures on our online petition.

Please make the crossing safe even for the most vulnerable getting us closer to our Vision Zero goal.

We also thank council members Strauss and Lewis for co-sponsoring this amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Tiffany McCoy.

Good morning.

My name is Tiffany McCoy.

I am the advocacy director at Real Change and I'm calling in to ask you to vote yes on the municipal housing administration team CBA OH002B01-2023.

This program staffed by professionals with knowledge of local affordable housing and international models of social housing would administer social housing development built on public land that has an intentional split of housing affordable to all income levels from 0 to 120 percent of area media income.

This is really needed to enable affordable housing for working class people in Seattle whose income put them above the ceiling of poverty levels and the percent of median income necessary to gain low income housing assistance.

According to the most recent data from the U.S.

Census Bureau 42.6 percent of renter households in Seattle are cost burdened meaning that they are paying more than 30 percent of their income in rent.

Every council member that has renters in their district, which is all of you, you have a proportion of your constituents who are rent burdened.

So we need additional models of affordable housing in our city, and we need to implement them now.

Please vote yes.

Our neighbors deserve housing security regardless of their income bracket.

And Washington TAN and the AIA Seattle have also signed letters to council members urging your support on these.

Please stand with these community members to make sure that we have more affordable housing options for everyone in the city.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Eric Fisk.

Hi, I'm Eric Fisk.

A 30 year resident of Wallingford and I commuted to grad school at UW 30 years ago and I've seen no improvement to crossing I-5 since then even after light rail was open and there have been numerous accidents.

I'm calling in support of item 1-2-2 which is one and a half million for adding SDOT and WSDOT approved fencing to the Northeast 45th Street bridge over I-5.

It's the only connection the bridge is the only connection between Wallingford and the U-District urban cores for pedestrians and cyclists.

The project will add fencing to the outside of the existing low railings, which physically and visually shields pedestrians and cyclists from the traffic on the freeway below and makes the crossing much safer for both of them.

It's particularly important for vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists that are forced onto the sidewalk.

And of course, the cyclists ride even higher than pedestrians do.

And there's always a danger of falling over the railing and onto the freeway below.

The fencing also protects drivers in transit on the interstate below from objects that can fall off the overpass or be thrown from it.

Affordable win-win solution to a critical transportation need.

Part of embracing the environmentalist creed of reduce and reuse in tight budget times and to reduce embodied carbon impacts.

Not ideal like a new pedestrian bridge or leading the freeway, but the cost will be less than 100 times that.

So we could fence off 100 bridges for the cost of, for instance, the new overpass that was put in at North The project is complete.

It can be a catalyst to get other freeway overpasses fenced off as Portland has done with every last one of the overpasses in their city.

The fencing has been a goal for the Wallingford and U District communities for over a decade since we got the project added in the 2015 levy to move Seattle and it's far past time for us to move forward and to deliver on this commitment.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Tess Wendell.

And I'm sorry, everyone, to make one more announcement.

We are seeing more folks sign up.

So I just wanna make sure we get through everyone.

We're gonna do a minute and 30 seconds, a minute, 30 seconds, final answer.

And so we'll get through everybody, but I just wanna make sure that we do that.

Just one to listen.

Hi.

Am I on?

Yes you are.

Hi my name my name is Tess Wendell and I'm in District 5 in the Maple Leaf area and I'm calling today to support the amendments that eliminate the 80 vacant and unfunded positions within the Seattle Police Department.

Any of these positions SPD has no plans or ability to fill.

We need our.

budget to be based on reality.

The mayor's office already moved funding for these positions from Seattle Police Department to other departments to partially offset cuts to items that provide true public safety like food access and traffic safety investments.

Not abrogating these positions would mean that Seattle Police Department would automatically get funding for them again in 2025 even if there are no plans to fill.

I believe that the council needs to follow through and make sure that these positions are not funded because it's good budgeting and makes good sense.

I also support all cuts to Seattle Police Department including cuts for advertising campaigns new guns and retention bonuses.

What keeps people safe is housing.

And I'm really upset that on 20th and Lake City, my RV neighbors were swept.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Barbara Finney.

My name is Barbara Finney, a retiring member of American Federation of Government Employees Local 3197. Hundreds of working people and union members have joined the People's Budget campaign and council members to Juan's office to increase the Amazon tax by $140 million.

When the council Democrats say you don't have sufficient revenues and you have to make haircuts, what I hear you saying is you're refusing to make big business pay for the economic crisis and have instead decided to put the burden on working people in vulnerable communities.

I urge all Democrats on the City Council to join Council Member Sawant in rejecting the austerity budget by increasing the Amazon tax by $140 million and make the richest corporations in our city pay for the economic crisis and recession, not working people in vulnerable communities.

Fund public needs, including access to free abortion.

Last week, MLK Labor Council passed a resolution urging City Council to fund abortion care for all the city.

Abortion rights, including access to free abortion and workers' rights.

Increasing Amazon tax by $140 million, funds what's needed.

There's not a scarcity of resources to meet the housing, health care, and transportation needs of working people in our community.

There's a lack of political will to tax the rich and allocate city funds in a socially responsible manner.

It's unfortunate the City Council Democrats say there's not enough revenues.

There is increasing Amazon tech.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kaylee Baldwin.

Hello, my name is Kaylee Baldwin.

I'm speaking today as a staff member of Puget Sound Stage.

I'm a queer black woman born and raised in District 1. I support the solidarity budget and ask that you protect Jump Start investments.

and that you prioritize investments in our most vulnerable communities over policing and punishment.

I support Jumpstart funds going to what the original community supported towards the original community supported spending plan.

By only allowing Jumpstart to be spent on items other than affordable housing, spent on items like affordable housing, the Green New Deal, equitable development, and economic revitalization in 2023 and 2024, the balancing package rejects the mayor's attempt to permanently raid Jumpstart.

I reject the mayor's attempts currently to fund affordable housing and his proposal to use jumpstart as another flush flush fund for SPD jumpstart should not be backfilled be used to backfill budget deficits when those beneficial programs and services could be funded could be funded by diverting funds away from the Seattle Police Department.

Keep parking enforcement in SDOT and out of STD.

Vote yes on amendments that remove those 80 ghost cop positions.

Vote yes on cuts to STD funding for advertisement campaigns, new guns and retention bonuses.

Vote yes on amendments that invest in our communities through bolstered options for affordable housing and community development and green jobs and power solutions, not policing and punishment.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, let's go back to Tanya Wu and Emily MacArthur for 45 additional seconds, and then we will go to folks in the room here.

Tanya Wu and Emily MacArthur had 45 seconds to begin with, so we'll give them another 45 to get them to a minute and a half.

Thank you.

Tanya Wu, you're up.

Hi, this is Tanya again.

So I just want to reiterate, I'm asking for the council to consider restoring funding for LEAD and CoLEAD restore funding for anti-Asian hate and restore funding for the UnitedCare team, which their garbage pilot in the CAD has shown effects.

And I'm asking that, you know, the council demand transparency and accountability for KCRHA.

And if you're looking to balance, I recommend that, you know, you fund the three things I stated earlier over that one last thing, because we, really have been seeing the effects of those three things but not that last one.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is Emily McCarthy.

MacArthur.

Hi.

I'd like to urge you to add $500,000 to fund the Northwest American Museum's reopening by reducing the Seattle Police Department's advertising budget and $200,000 for the Clean Greens program to deliver fresh vegetables to low income neighbors.

Both are essential and beloved cultural and health initiatives for the central district community.

Also, I want to just reiterate the point that council members do have a choice to make today, whether or not to cut the budget, which is the choice that's before you, or to increase the Amazon tax by $140 million by voting yes on council member Sawant's Amazon tax increase of $140 million, which is supported as previously stated by hundreds of union and community members.

vote yes rather than voting for austerity and standing with billionaires and big business.

Thank you.

We'll now move to the in-person speakers.

The first person up is Gordon Paddleford followed by Anita Freeman.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Gordon Belford with Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.

Last Friday, we printed a banner to memorialize the 189 people who've died on our streets walking, biking, driving since the city adopted Vision Zero in 2015. And unfortunately, we had to go out and buy a Sharpie to update that because an 83-year-old woman was killed walking in West Seattle this past weekend.

And these people were our friends, our neighbors, our family members, our colleagues, our community members.

These aren't just statistics, and these are preventable tragedies, and we know how to prevent them.

And all these people should still be here with us.

80% of the pedestrians who've been killed on our streets have been killed on multi-lane arterials.

We know how to redesign these streets, and I'm grateful that the budget starts to take some actions towards that.

So as you are reviewing amendments today and you're thinking about the future and possible policy initiatives, please remember these people who've died on our streets.

As you're thinking about sidewalks and bike lanes and school zones and VLF and parking enforcement, really come back to how do we create a safe system where people can make mistakes, and everyone can still be safe and get home to their loved ones.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Anita Freeman followed by Reverend Harriet Walden.

Good morning.

My name is Anita Freeman with an R.

I'm with Wheel and Women in Black.

We support the solidarity budget and We are standing a special vigil on December 31st, December 21st.

It's our annual candlelight vigil where we name everyone who, every homeless person who died outside or by violence in King County in the year.

And this year through October, it's already 216. Friends, family and loved ones come to our vigils and to our leaf dedications.

It's testimony that every one of these people loved and was loved by someone.

A budget is a moral document and in a moral document, life has to be a priority.

Do not fund sweeps that kill.

spend that money on life saving shelter, housing, services, treatment and harm reduction.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Reverend Harriet Walden followed by Rick Robertson.

Good morning.

Thank you.

My name is Reverend Walden I'm speaking for mothers police accountability this morning.

And I'm going to ask the city council about our safety plan for the whole city.

Everyone is talking about everything but nobody caught talks about the mothers who are crying because their children was killed.

It's nothing in the budget for them.

Also, we believe that the 911 call center and SPDI and NSDOT would be better served back in the police department.

There's an anti-public safety here in Seattle.

People are not interested in the whole community.

being safe.

We are.

And the other thing also we want to keep Lakes Washington Boulevard open that because it's a civil rights issue.

Also, I want to give a big shout out to Councilmember Nelson and Lewis and all the work that they're doing on the council.

And I just wanted to just spend one minute to just manage to think about the mothers.

No one has ever said anything about black people who are crying in the city because their kids are being killed.

You might be putting a lot of money towards safety plans, but what are the results on that?

Where's the audit on that?

So we need better results on where the money is going and how it's going.

And also we want the safety plan to include the shot spotter.

Oakland has it, so why can't we just include a safety plan that would do that.

I guess my time has expired.

Is that correct?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Rick Robertson followed by Christopher Anderson.

Good morning, council members.

I hold in my hand the list of 216 names of people who died homeless in the city just so far this year.

This is not a statistic.

These are not talking points or line items.

These are people who lost their way long before they lost their life.

We don't know what tragic circumstance pushed these people off of their path in life.

but these are circumstances that could have happened to anyone in this room.

And the question you have to ask yourself is, am I strong enough to have survived what they went through and still come out clean on the other side?

Many of these people might've been saved by being in the right place in the right time.

and speaking with the right person who had the right amount of resources to help them.

More affordable housing, more harm reduction, more treatment will help these people get off of their current path and back into society.

I wanna thank Chairman Mosqueda and the rest of the council for the hard work you've done in restructuring this budget and help these people.

Please remember that before you marginalize, criminalize, or demonize these people, it could have easily been any one of us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Christopher Anderson, followed by Peter Condit.

Thank you.

As you've heard, these 216 people are real people.

Our plan was to read those names.

Can we start the time over?

Do you mind just getting a little closer to the mic?

Sure.

Is that better?

A little closer.

You can do that.

Thank you.

There we go.

Let's start your time over.

Thank you.

All right.

These are people that we would have liked to have said their names to you.

We don't have time to do that in the time allotted.

So our voice is a little bit quashed in just saying their names.

It would take us over 20 folks at this microphone in order to read those names to you.

And we're not going to prioritize any one of these people over any of the others, just like we're not gonna prioritize any one of the speakers in this room to ask them to give us more time.

but we're not going to prioritize them over you either, okay, or you over them.

They are important members of this community and they are lost.

You've heard Anitra talk about the times when we did do vigils and we've had family members come and tell us how important those that have died were to them.

They're are more than just a few dozen folks at 10 city three right now, as council member Patterson would like to state in his blog today or earlier yesterday, it's upwards of 60 and can expand to 100 at its current location.

It's about the next site and the way that that's being handled were less than Honorable.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Peter Condit followed by Clara Cantor.

Good morning, council members.

Today, you will vote on whether or not the Seattle Police Department gets to hold on to 80 ghost cop positions.

The mayor's proposed budget did not fund these 80 positions because there's no possibility nor intent by SPD to fill them.

they are and will be vacant in the coming biennium.

I encourage you to abrogate the MTFTEs as part of good budgeting practice and as proposed in the balancing package.

A vote against abrogating these positions would increase SPD's funding in the following biennium, 2025 and 2026. Such action would be premature and would send the message that you are unwilling to spend the next two years building solutions and services that make Seattle safe without the deadly harms of policing.

Less policing is good and right for Seattle.

As the police department has reduced in size since early 2020, Seattle has only become a more desirable place to live.

Cops kill.

They kill people directly through violence and sweeps, as is happening on 3rd Avenue right now, and they kill directly Sorry, and they killed indirectly by taking money from housing and services people need.

Stop the sweeps, stop shot spotter and defund SPD.

Support the solidarity budget, fund vision zero, specifically pedestrian and bike infrastructure in district two and vote yes to form a municipal housing administrative team.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Clara Cantor followed by Matthew Offenbacher.

Hello, my name is Clara Cantor and I'm a community organizer with Seattle Neighborhood Greenways and with Whose Streets Are Streets.

And I'm here to support the Solidarity Budget Coalition Asks and speak specifically about asking council to vote and to approve Council Member Skater's balancing package amendment to keep parking enforcement officers within SDOT while the city determines where their division should ultimately reside and to please vote against Council Member Straus' amendment to bounce them back to SPD until April.

Keeping parking enforcement officers in SPD and using punitive enforcement as our first and only tool to address parking problems is both inequitable and it's just plain ineffective.

Parking enforcement officers are out on the streets every day and see how our streets are functioning and with decisive leadership towards a strong mission and vision they would be a great asset to the curb space management team and work that SDOT is already doing and can be a part of proactively increasing safety long term and making the street function better for everyone.

And since I have a little bit more time, I'm also gonna add on a little bit to what Gordon and what Peter said earlier about Vision Zero.

Of those people who Gordon mentioned who are killed in traffic violence over the last few years, over half of those are in District Two, as you know, as we've said many times over the last few years.

And yet we are still actively delaying and defunding and downgrading Safe Streets projects in D2.

So please support Council Member Alice's amendment to direct funding to pedestrian bike improvements in D2 and to protect me and my neighbors like you already do to the people of North Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Matthew Offenbacher followed by Hannah Swoboda.

Hi, council members.

You know, this is the first year I really paid so much attention to the budgeting process and I first just want to say thank you for all of your hard work, and it's really quite an amazing process to, to watch and to see how all these interests get balanced.

I especially want to I wanted to say thank you to the city of San Francisco and the city of San Francisco for the cost of living increases for human service workers.

It seems like there's not much opposition to that going ahead in the proposed budget and I'm very pleased that that is included.

I showed up today to support the women in black and the I really find it unbelievable the number, the 116 deaths, especially considering we're just now getting into the cold time of year when inevitably there'll be more.

And I find it unconscionable that we're a city that continues a policy of sweeping folks who are trying to survive on the streets, including this morning, apparently down here on 3rd Avenue, that's happening as this meeting is going on.

I support the solidarity budget and all the priorities that the solidarity budget puts forward for public safety in our city.

And essentially, the way I understand that is it is a vision of public safety that tries to remove as much funding as possible from the Seattle Police Department and invest that money into housing, into food security, and I think my time's expired.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Hannah Swoboda, followed by Ken Ohlendorf.

Hi, everybody.

My name's Hannah Svoboda.

I'm a renter in District 3, and I'm here to urge all Democrats on the City Council to vote yes on the proposal from the People's Budget and Socialist Council Member Shama Sawant to reject an austerity budget and instead increase the Amazon tax by $140 million.

Working people right now are struggling with inflation, and the rich are getting richer at our expense.

So no matter how much the City Council Democrats claim that this isn't an austerity budget, it is.

And the solution for the deficit is really simple.

Tax big business.

Don't make working people pay for this.

And lastly, I'd urge you to add $500,000 to fund the Northwest African American Museum's reopening by reducing SPD's budget, advertising budget, and $200,000 for the Clean Greens Program to deliver fresh vegetables to low-income neighbors.

I live in the Central District.

These are really essential community programs for health and culture in the community.

Thanks.

Thank you.

The last speaker for this group is Ken Ullendorf.

Good morning, I'm Ken Olander.

I come here today to ask you to support Commission wants people's budget, because it is that the only budget to accurately address the problems with sales deficit to make a positive change the time in this time of change sales host eight billionaires have a combined net worth of 250. $5.3 billion.

These billionaires have made their fortunes on the back of working people.

The burden of this crisis has fallen to us, the working class, and rich have made off with filled pockets every time.

Now, this is the right moment of this potential crisis.

Austerity seems to be the only answer.

This is not true.

It's not right.

The last two years of hardship that now we have to lose the things that made it possible to live through them in the first place, like funded affordable housing, eviction prevention, and fully inflammation adjusted raises for human service workers.

$140 million of small potatoes for big business like Amazon with the runaway profits.

The solution is right here in front of us.

It is obvious.

Vote for the people's budget, not the austerity budget.

Lastly, I would like to to add on, this has been seconded, that add a half a million dollars to fund the Northwest African Museum's reopening by reducing the Seattle Police Department advertising budget at $200,000 to clean green program to deliver fresh vegetables to low income neighborhoods.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll now move to the next 10 remote public speakers.

And the first person up is Tom Mara, who will be followed by Camille Gix.

Thanks again for bearing with me.

Go ahead, Tom.

Hi, this is Tom Mara.

I'm the executive director for SEFF, Seattle International Film Festival, and also a member of the Seattle Center Foundation.

And I speak today in support of Memorial Stadium.

And I see it as a historic moment where Seattle schools and the city of Seattle coming together after many years, decades, to get to the point of investing in this platform for how our city comes together, not only in terms of high school sports and activities, arts and culture, civic events, but also music, and of course, outdoor film.

And I just want to strongly encourage the city council to invest and bringing our city together in this way, and help bring new life into Memorial Stadium.

And I thank so much for all the time, energy, and commitment people have been applying so far.

Thank you so very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Camille Gix, followed by Kelly Phelan.

Good morning.

My name is Camille Gix.

I work at Real Change.

I am a student and a union member.

as well as a lifelong Seattleite living with my parents at 28 years old because it's my only affordable option.

And I am calling in today to support the Municipal Housing Administration team.

It is incredibly important that we invest in our frontline workers and this means investing them and investing in them being able to stay in the city.

My lifelong friends who are frontline workers in grocery stores hospitals and schools either live with family or spend well over 40 percent of their income in rent every month.

They hover at the 80 percent of the area median income range and have never had access to low income housing.

They're forced to go into the private market to rent housing that is well out of their capacity.

We need a model of housing that will allow for these vital people in our community to stay in the city without the anxiety of not being able to make rent.

We need a model that has been proven in countries and cities around the world to be a successful way to bring the entire workforce into affordability.

The Municipal Housing Administration team is the first step in making Seattle a city where the well-being and basic needs of all workers are prioritized.

We can't wait to do the moral thing.

We cannot wait until it is feasible to try something new.

We need to do it now because more and more working people are being pushed out of Seattle.

I am asking you not to wait to give this ask a chance.

The only way to solve our crisis is to be creative and look beyond the status quo and the Municipal Housing Administration team is the way to do this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kelly Phelan, followed by Jacob Scheer.

Hi, good morning.

My name is Kelly Phelan.

I am the owner of The Works Seattle.

We provide hands-on experiences through both in-person classes in our Pioneer Square storefront, as well as DIY kits that we ship nationwide.

I am here to comment today just to encourage you to not reduce funding for the Commercial Ability, sorry, Commercial Affordability.

That's CBAOED601A001-2023.

The Commercial Affordability Program is important to me as a Seattle Restored participant because it's really helped our small women-owned and operated business thrive by removing barriers.

Specifically, the program has created an opportunity for us to expand our storefront into prime retail space in Pioneer Square We've learned so much through that process.

And because of the program, we've also been able to invest our dollars in hiring additional staff to help us grow, which has been huge.

So we surely could not be doing what we're doing today without this program.

And having the support of the city through this type of programming is so essential to small businesses, I think across Seattle, as we're continuing to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic.

And not just to have our small businesses surviving, but to really see them thriving.

I just wanted to comment that some small businesses in Seattle need your support now more than ever.

And I urge you to support the commercial affordability programming to continue to invest in our small businesses.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jacob Shear followed by Kaz Han.

Hi, my name is Jacob Shear.

I'm an organizer in the Real Change Advocacy Department as well as a rank and file member of IBW 89. And I'm seeing today to urge all council members to include council member Morales's amendment to create a municipal housing administration in the budget and to begin the process of building and acquiring social housing throughout Seattle.

Social housing is an internationally successful model proven to create more equitable and affordable cities and to not make an effort to fund it in the 2023 budget would be a blatant refusal by council members on taking urgent action on displacement, homelessness and affordability in Seattle.

And we can accept the status quo of Seattle that's defined by rent burden, homeless death, and displacement, and a city that's only really available to the wealthy.

And it's very clear that our current approach is not enough, and there's no reason or excuse for not trying models of affordable housing that have proven to be successful throughout the world, including here in the United States.

So I urge all council members to include Council Member Morales' amendments to create a Municipal Housing Administration in the budget.

Thank you.

Thank you, our next speaker is Kaz Han followed by Joe Riley.

Good morning, my name is Kaz Han and I live in district one in North Admiral.

I'm calling in in general support of the solidarity budget, but specifically want to urge the council to keep parking enforcement in the Seattle Department of Transportation and out of the Seattle Police Department As noted when it first moved, keeping parking enforcement out of SPD would reduce interactions between residents and law enforcement.

An additional benefit is to streamline communication between the officers who issue parking tickets and the transportation division responsible for fixing hazardous parking areas.

So this moves the department closer to focusing on safety of all residents versus a purely punitive focus.

And using punitive enforcement as our first tool to address parking problems is ineffective in reaching real, long-lasting solutions and is inequitable and unjust.

And I thank my Council Member Herbold for her leadership on this and I urge the Council to vote no on Council Member Straus' amendment that would return parking enforcement officers to SPD Please let's keep working to move all civilian functions out of SPD.

Thank you for your support.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jo Riley followed by Alice Lockhart.

Jo, you got to hit star six.

Can you hit star six one more time, Joe?

All right, Madam Clerk, I think we'll go to the next person.

Our next speaker is Alice Lockhart followed by Howard Gale.

Good morning, happy Budget Voting Day.

I'm Alice Lockhart, and I've been doing a lot of geeky spreadsheet management for Solidarity Budget, but even in that dry work, some budget items really resonate.

One of these is Jazz House.

It's a relatively small amount of money that checks so many boxes close to my heart, and I hope close to yours.

Closing affordable housing that helps prevent displacement and climate damaging urban sprawl, community initiated and run, collaboration between community and an affordable housing provider, And it will preserve a great musical tradition and provide wonderful opportunities for kids.

And it invests in community, not policing.

I think if you all hold these same principles in mind while voting across all amendments, we'll have a great budget.

Two more specifics.

We certainly need more housing like Gads House throughout the city.

Please vote to fund a municipal housing program that will increase the amount of permanently affordable housing by creating publicly owned permanently affordable housing.

We all need that to thrive.

And please also vote for protected bike lanes in D2, the district most impacted by traffic deaths.

Ideally, we'd fund all active transportation needs, but I urge you to for sure vote for this one in the community that hasn't gotten its share of bike infrastructure.

It will save lives, promote climate-friendly affordable transportation, and inspire other districts to ask for the same relatively inexpensive beneficial changes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Howard Gale followed by Julia Cobelt.

Good morning.

Howard Gale with seattlestop.org.

Two years after George Floyd, the budget the council is now considering still proposes more money for the police and wastes over $11 million on a police accountability system that still has police investigating police and denies victims of police violence any semblance of justice, accountability, or even a right of appeal when our accountability system rules in favor of the police.

For the first time in over five years, you have the opportunity to vote for a small improvement to our police accountability system that has systematically failed those most severely impacted by police violence.

This is a small but important step in ameliorating the most severe harms that result from Seattle's police training and policy.

Budget Amendment Number 132 in Voting Group B, SBD 101B, will start a process for supporting families impacted by police violence and investigate creating an appeals process for when the Office of Police Accountability finds in favor of the police.

This budget amendment is a moral and practical statement that offers a glimmer of hope after a decade of failed promises.

Thank you to council members Mosqueda, Morales, and Herbold for meeting with impacted family members and supporting this amendment.

And I hope all council members will enthusiastically vote in favor of it today.

And please support agenda item 141, which is SBD 904A, removing the monies for failed technology like ShotSpotter.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Julia Cobelt followed by Jess Wallach.

Hi, my name is Julia Cobelt.

I'm a rank and file member of UAW 4121 and a renter in District 6. I'm urging the City Council to vote yes on the proposal from the People's Budget Movement and Council Member Shama Salon to increase the Amazon tax to pay for the economic crisis affecting Seattle's budget.

If the City Council Democrats say they want to prevent austerity and cuts given the budget deficit, then all council members should easily vote yes on increasing the Amazon tax by $140 million so the super rich pay for this crisis, not working people.

Yet not a single other council member has spoken in support of this, which is an outrage.

Big business has made billions during the pandemic while working people suffer.

We should use that immense wealth to fund our needs.

Last week, the MLK Labor Council passed a resolution urging the city council to fully fund abortion care in Seattle, which shows what's possible when workers get organized across different unions and industries and fight for clear demands that unite us.

My union, along with over 100,000 union members in the Labor Council, are supporting the people's budget demand for $3.5 million to fully fund abortion access by increasing the Amazon tax.

I also support cutting the police advertising budget to fund the Northwest African-American Museum and fund Clean Greens, and support council members to launch amendments to the city budget, rejecting $1 million in shot spotter technology, which we know is ineffective and wasteful.

and instead use that money for human services.

Thank you.

Let's go back to Joe Riley.

Good afternoon, Council.

This is Joe Riley, Policy Director at Seattle Subway.

The majority of Seattle City Council recently supported the need to future-proof Sound Transit 3 for future Sound Transit 4 expansion.

And now as follows, we urge council to continue their strong support in today's council statement of legislative intent for SDOT, a smart request for SDOT to, quote, develop a map for expansion of high capacity transit, including future expansion of the light rail network beyond Sound Transit 3 in the new transportation plan.

This expansion map is necessary for Seattle to guide Sound Transit's future expansion If SDOT does not prioritize this map, several of Seattle's highest densities of affordable housing located in high equity priority areas will never receive light rail stations in the future.

Thank you and please support the creation of this rail corridor expansion map.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jess Wallach.

Good morning Council and staff.

My name is Jeff Wallach and I'm with 350 Seattle.

We support funding for healthy climate futures and are pleased to see City Council in step with the community-led Green New Deal Oversight Board with funding for Indigenous-led sustainability projects the Environmental Justice Fund and a robust Community Resilience Hub study.

And we urge you to invest in a Seattle where everyone can get around safely without a car.

For years now I've been riding my bike in Seattle.

It's free.

It's fun and it's usually faster than driving.

but it can also be really dangerous.

Despite being well lit and always following traffic rules, I've had cars almost hit me more times than I can count, and too many friends who've had broken bones, head trauma, and chronic pain because of careless cars.

I live in Green Lake, and when the protected bike lanes went in, oh my God, it was transformative.

There are so many more parents with kids, elders, people of all shapes and sizes who are out biking.

With protected bike lanes, you don't have to risk your life or your loved ones to get where you're going, and the data shows The number one thing to increase cyclist safety on the road is more cyclists feeling that they can be out and safe on the road.

But Seattle's investments in bike lanes have been disproportionately concentrated in whiter wealthier neighborhoods like mine.

That policy choice is killing people in South Seattle.

That's why 350 Seattle urges you to support Council Member Morales's amendment for protective barriers on all bike lanes in District 2. Let's pay for this by eliminating 80 vacant unfilled SPD positions.

prioritizing safe, affordable, low-carbon transportation over a bloated, unaccountable police budget.

That's how- Thank you.

We'll move to the in-person public commenters.

And the first person up is Margo Stewart followed by Lucas Esperanza.

Hey, my name is Margo, I live and work on first Hill, and I'm here to vote urge all Council Democrats to vote yes on the proposal to raise the Amazon tax by 140 million dollars.

Um, put forward by our people's budget movement, and by Councilmember salon.

You know right now ordinary people are being told to tighten our belts and accept cuts while we're being squeezed at the pump at the grocery store and by skyrocketing rents and I'm sure folks are feeling those pressures, especially acutely this week of all weeks what we tried to make time, you know, with our loved ones for the holiday.

These extreme pressures are expecting people all around the country, but I think they sting particularly sharply here in Seattle, where we have the second largest amount of billionaire wealth in the country, and it seems there's always money to be found to throw at the SPD.

So in this context, I strongly disagree with the idea that what Democrats are preparing to vote on is anything but an austerity budget or that there's no real choice to be made.

You know, the choice is who will you make pay for this crisis?

We have the means to fix all these shortfalls at hand in the form of the Amazon tax on big business, which tens of thousands of working and young people won and fought for, you know, out of the Black Lives Matter movement.

And we need to be demanding that big business and developers who have profited grossly pay for this crisis, not working people on the receiving ends.

If we say there's not enough revenues, what that really means is that Democrats were not willing to make big business pay.

And I think it's super dishonest to talk about there not being enough money for all these big ideas in this context.

So I urge you to make big business pay for this crisis, not ordinary people.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Lucas Esperanza, followed by Siobhan Kakaton.

Hello, I'm here to advocate for the demand that the Seattle City Council support the People's Budget Campaign by raising the Amazon tax by 140 million.

Moreover, I urge that the council vote yes on the amendment to support free abortion access for all.

Right now, abortion access and reproductive healthcare has been endangered due to the Supreme Court's repealing of Roe versus Wade.

And although Seattle is considered an abortion sanctuary city, it is vital that the city council continue to take more robust action on such matters immediately.

It is estimated that it would cost only a few million to a few million a year to fund every abortion in Seattle and this would likely be less than 1% of the Seattle police budget and even less of a fraction of the profits that the executives and major shareholders of companies like Amazon and Starbucks have made during the pandemic.

We must fight to increase the Amazon tax by $140 million to fund a people's budget, including affordable housing, inflation-adjusted wage increases for social and human service workers, Green New Deal programs, homeless services, and eviction protection for renters, and free abortion access for all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Shubhan Kakatan, followed by Natalie Bailey.

Hello, my name is Shaban Kakaruban, and I'm a student studying public health at the University of Washington.

I ask all city council members to vote yes on Council Member Kshama Sawant's proposed legislation to increase the Amazon tax by $140 million.

Anything short of this measure will be inadequate to address the economic crisis Seattle faces today.

Rents, which were already skyrocketing before inflation, have further increased in price, resulting in one of the highest homeless populations in the country.

Deaths among homeless people remain at inhumane levels.

According to King County Medical Examiner's Office, 85% died to unnatural causes, including vehicle-related accidents, overdoses, homicides, and suicides.

The 15% that died to natural causes live much shorter lives due to cardiovascular and respiratory health problems.

I also urge the City Council to fund free abortion, which will only cost $3.5 million as part of the $140 million increase to the Amazon tax.

The Democrats on the City Council have a choice.

You can vote yes on the proposed increase to the progressive Amazon tax, or you can vote on a regressive budget which reduces public revenues.

You can tax big business which has profited immensely during this period of inflation, or cut essential services for working class women, renters, and the homeless.

the profits of billionaires or the health and well-being of the rest of Seattle.

Amazon and Starbucks have made record-breaking profits during this period of inflation while class has made much as wages have not caught up with inflation.

Oh yes, on the $140 million increase to the Amazon tax.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Natalie Bailey followed by Jay Jones.

Hello.

My name is Natalie Bailey.

I'm a renter in District 3. I urge all Democrats in the City Council to vote yes on the proposal for the People's Budget.

And Socialist City Council members shall must want to make good business pay for this economic crisis.

I think that I want to echo a lot of points that other people have said.

I think that this budget, if it is going to make clear cuts to these essential services that working people need, can't be called anything but an austerity budget.

working people need, like these renter organizing, eviction protection, tiny homes, and other services for homeless neighbors, like that's something that working people and oppressed communities really need.

And to say anything else is really proposing an austerity budget.

During the pandemic, billionaires and multimillionaires made a huge amount of money while working people suffered.

And now we're being faced with huge inflation and skyrocketing rents as other people have said and like we desperately need the $140 million from the Amazon budget tax being expanded to cover these shortfalls and not make these cuts.

In addition, I also want to echo other people's point, rejecting the million dollars in the ShotSpotter technology.

It's proven ineffective and wasteful, and that money could be much better used for public funding human services.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jay Jones, followed by Caitlin Mulliken.

Good morning, Council.

My name is Jay.

I'm a member of Stop the Sweeps and Solidarity Budget.

I actually came with a different script for comment than I'm reading to you now, because as I walked up to City Hall, I passed by a sweep happening just a block away that you could actually see if you look at these glistening windows of City Hall down on the folks suffering at your feet.

We actually know some of the folks down there.

So I struggled to stay here and talk with you instead of going to support people who we've come to know, because honestly, I don't expect you to stand up to Harold and cut the funding for the sweep crew.

But I stayed because this sweep is one of hundreds and hundreds that occur throughout the city each year.

We know, we're at most of them.

Like all those other sweeps, it will do nothing to meaningfully address homelessness, which is a feature, not a bug, of inequality-induced poverty and the severe lack of affordable and supportive housing and other necessary services in the city.

Instead of addressing this, you all plan to spend $38 million next year to repeat the cycle of throwing people's stuff away and sweeping them along under threat of arrest just to be swept again another day.

Defund sweeps and end them entirely.

This inhumane and senseless practice does not belong in our city.

And honestly, you all should be ashamed of yourselves.

Fund services, not sweeps.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Caitlin Mulliken, followed by Rose King.

Good morning, council members.

I first want to shout out the solidarity budget and uplift the work that women in black do.

I'm a UW grad student, and I've been living in Seattle for a little over a year and a half.

And in that time, I've witnessed horrific violence against unhoused people in the community perpetrated by the city of Seattle, by Seattle Police, SDOT, SPU, Parks and Rec department.

Every week, there are multiple encampment sweeps where unhoused folks are forcibly displaced from the only shelter they have.

Their survival items, the things that keep them dry, warm, and alive are thrown away.

And it breaks up communities of folks who are trying to support each other while living outside.

Meanwhile, the city offers limited services like congregate shelters or the occasional tiny home, but no pathways towards permanent housing.

And a lot of these services are not things that unhoused people need or want right now.

As people have mentioned this morning, starting at 9 a.m., there was an encampment sweep, one treat over on 3rd and Cherry.

I've been with a mutual aid group weekly going out there to serve food and hand out supplies and get to know the folks living out there.

So it's very hard to see that happening every week down there.

Meanwhile, the city is set to direct $38 million towards items that will increase sweeps.

Why aren't we funding housing solutions instead?

I urge council members to reject the increased funding for the unified care team, the $38 million towards sweeps.

to support Council Member Morales' municipal housing amendment, and to redirect funds away from police and towards housing and social services.

Sweeps kill, and without shelter, people die.

We need services, not encampment sweeps.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Rose King, followed by Joy.

Hi again, Council.

Last time I stood before you was on November 8th, Election Day.

I told you who I was, a teacher and a service provider and the daughter of a victim of police violence.

I and many others told you what we wanted, to reject the $38 million that are earmarked for violently sweeping our neighbors via the Unified Care Team.

I and many others were ignored in your amendments.

Today, as we gathered here for public comment, there was a sweep at 3rd and Cherry.

Today, as we convened in a warm building and exchanged pleasantries about our families, there were police waking, harassing, and threatening folks who were hunkered down in the 42-degree weather.

My heart was so torn choosing to spend time here for public comment when hearts were crying out in need outside our doors.

I do not understand why Council is choosing to look away from the near doubling of our sweep budget when we know that sweeps destroy belongings, they disrupt connection with service providers, and most importantly, they disrupt community.

These things kill people and we know that.

I don't know why council is okay with increasing with the mayor's proposal to increase the bloodshed on our collective hands as a city that funds sweeps.

Homelessness itself is an assault on human rights.

By funding sweeps we are funding cruel and unusual punishment to those whose human rights are already being violated.

Because we have been ignored and are pleased to reject increased funding for sweeps, I will do the political thing and I will support the amendments that fall closest to what I want.

I support the Municipal Social Housing Amendment sponsored by Council Member Morales who worked with House Our Neighbors and I support any amendments to move funding away from SPD and those that increase police.

Next.

Next.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Joy, followed by Kathy Dunn.

Morning Council, I'm Joy Randall and just this morning I was at two areas where the city is failing vulnerable and marginalized residents.

One was an area where a certain parking enforcement officer is harassing and threatening those living in RVs.

I was told today that this PEO is using a taped hammer to knock on people's windows.

These residents have no place to go.

Their time is filled with scrambling to move every few days, filled with stress and fear their homes will be towed.

Right afterwards on my way here, there was a surprise sweep just down the street at 3rd and Cherry, as you've already heard.

And I appreciate Council Member Morales stopping by and at least asking questions to that park supervisor.

People who are being failed by the city that is focusing on not focusing on services but sweeps pushing people from street to street is just a travesty.

The trauma and harm that these sweeps impose when people are offered minimal resources you cannot ignore.

In addition to this dehumanizing experience, the parking enforcement officers slap tickets onto people's vehicles just as they roll out from the sweep zone.

I witnessed PEOs even ticket one person who was just trying to help and jumpstart someone's RV so they would not get towed.

It wasn't in a spot that was in a right away or even traffic.

These PEOs are just abusing their power and harassing people.

It is just, dehumanizing, criminalizing, and I...

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kathy Dunn, followed by Cortez Jones.

Can you hear me?

Okay, I'm Kathy Dunn.

There's a bloodbath on our streets Yesterday, a woman died in the West Seattle Junction.

She was walking her dog.

She's 83 years old.

She was hit Saturday.

She passed away yesterday.

I could have been that woman.

I cross in the same place where she crosses.

There's a very unsafe five-way intersection that's designed strictly for cars.

And at our age, we have reduced reflexes, inability to judge distances, eyesight problems, and inability to walk fast.

This morning, a person died on Aurora.

That's number nine in two months on Aurora, was killed by a vehicle.

People don't feel safe on our streets, and they're going out and doing guerrilla crosswalks, which are immediately erased by Estat, and they say that there's a false perception of safety.

Well, somebody went out there and wrote the text on that.

X crosswalk and wrote, there's a false perception of safety if you cross here.

Okay, so we need an increase in our SDOT budget for safety, street safety and improvements in district two especially.

Thank you very much, I support those amendments.

Thank you, our next speaker is Cortez Jones.

The ability to expand.

I want to talk about the concept of the ability to expand.

What I would like to fund is a new program called Core Resources to try to tackle the Human Resource Act.

The Human Resource Act literally deprives us every day.

The only reason why we see people outside smoking blues in front of companies and businesses is because our lack of ability to expand.

I like to go to places like Apple, Amazon, and ask for the ability to expand.

Your company has had the ability to expand.

What about us?

Why do we not have the ability to expand?

I've actually wanted to focus on human resources as a way to discuss deprivation, but why discuss deprivation and keep asking, keep asking for funding all the time from these companies?

I would like to increase the ability to expand.

Core Resources is a program that actually funds that, the ability to expand.

How do you have human resources?

And there's not enough workers out here to actually give us the ability to expand.

Apple, Amazon, all these companies would like clean streets as well.

So I'm asking you guys to give us the ability to expand core resources.

Thank you.

We'll now move back to the remote public commenters.

And the first person up is Jim Bernthal.

And Madam Clerk, I'm looking at the remaining time and we have about 25 people left to speak on the online forum.

So at this point, I will be asking folks to do one minute so we can hear everybody before the 1130 deadline.

So one minute for public comment.

And thanks again.

You can always send us the remainder of your comments at council at Seattle.gov.

Please go ahead, Jim.

Hi, my name is Jim Bernthal.

I'm a long-term resident of District 2, Councilmember Morales' district.

I'm here to speak in favor of the solidarity budget, in particular Councilmember Morales' amendment for funding a municipal housing program.

I see it all around me in my neighborhood.

Rents are skyrocketing and landlords choosing to allow more units to sit vacant just in order to charge higher rents.

We need badly to increase the amount of permanent affordable housing by creating publicly owned and permanently affordable housing.

City Council needs to create a municipal housing program and fund green building certification, as well as green building apprenticeships.

I also want to speak strongly in favor of Council Morales' amendment because it helps people to avoid evictions and homelessness.

Skyrocketing rents are invariably followed by a wave of evictions.

It's really important to allow people to stay in their homes.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Castille Hightower, followed by Acacia Corson.

In 2020, we saw a mass movement erupt across this country calling for an end to police violence and justice for its victims.

As thousands of peaceful protestors filled Seattle streets in 2020, protesting against police violence, they themselves became victims of police brutality.

And like many impacted families, were forced to navigate a hostile system that lost, minimized, and dismissed their complaints, all without a right or process of appeal, creating yet another layer of bureaucratic trauma and fighting for justice and accountability.

While the officers are backed by millions, defending and justifying their actions, we are only given a broken accountability system and hashtags.

and the violence continues.

The time is far overdue in creating an office independent of the police, specifically for victims of police violence and holding the city accountable for the harms and its policies allowed to continue.

Thank you to the council members for introducing, excuse me, Council Member Skater for introducing the Affected Persons Program, Item 132, Amendment SPD-101-B.

And thank you to the council members for publicly and privately supporting this.

It is a vital step in addressing the continued harms that has been perpetuated by the city policies and its employees, Also, I'm against ShopSpotter and I support agenda item 141, SPD 904X.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Acacia Corson followed by BJ Last.

Hello, I'm Acacia Corson, owner and creator of Batter Body and the Self Care Square, a business that is part of the Seattle Resorts Commercial Affordability Program asking you to vote no on reducing funds for said program by 1.5 million.

While opening a brick-and-mortar and storefront was always one of our goals, it was far off in the distance with funding and other resources to secure it without a breach for us.

When we started working with Seattle Restored and the property management teams that were provided through them, we got the opportunity to open a brick-and-mortar and saw a huge community impact.

In short, Seattle Restored provided a platform to take our trade show retail business model and make it a community-based business model that offers retail as well.

And they're very intentional on picking local small businesses that would make Seattle shine.

And upon our placement, we put our ear to the streets and observe what was going on around us.

And there are more vacant commercial spaces and open businesses.

And since our opening, all visitors have spoken in their Starbucks community and are glad to finally see something going on in the neighborhood.

They're building communities with one another and Seattle restores commercial.

Thank you.

BJ Last is up, followed by Austin Price.

Hello, my name is BJ Lass.

I'm a Ballard resident.

I support the solidarity budget.

Council should keep the parking enforcement unit in SDOT and reject Council Member Straus' amendment to move it back to SPD.

Moving the PEU back to SPD is a mess.

Step backwards, moving the city back towards a purely punitive ticketing approach to curb space management instead of leaving the PEU.

In SDOT, we can work on alternative approaches and more closely collaborate with the department that actually manages Seattle's roads, walkways, sidewalks, and bike lanes.

Council Member Strauss's amendment would also give SPD $1.5 million for an advertising campaign and give Seattle Parks $1 million for anti-homelessness activation programming in a park that's current.

It'd take a million dollars to take down a fence and activate a park.

Council Members voting for this spending while cutting funding for food security, ADA compliance in parks, sidewalk maintenance, eviction prevention and defense, Vision Zero Investments in District 2 the area of the city that sees majority of pedestrian and cyclist traffic fatalities will make it clear who in Seattle they feel accountable.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Marty Jackson followed by Brian Myers.

Thank you for your support of the Seattle Community Safety Initiative.

My name is Marty Jackson.

I'm asking for your continued support of this funding.

This collaboration includes urban family boys and girls come to King County YMCA and community passageways.

We have provided neighborhood and school safety in Southeast Seattle Central District and West Seattle.

We have prevented a number of potential critical incidents and have intervened and de-escalated a number of incidents.

I'm also asking for your support for the amendment sponsored by Council Member Morales to provide inflationary parity to the Rainier Beach a Beautiful Safe Place for Youth initiative.

We have been operating since 2015 and as a result of the non-arrest interventions that we've implemented in the Rainier Beach neighborhood violent crime has been down 30% in our neighborhood.

I'm also asking that you not support the shot spotter technology as it does not result in reductions in violent crimes and it exacerbates the disproportionate policing of communities of color.

There are many cities that have stopped using shot spotter because of its ineffectiveness.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Brian Myers followed by Kevin Vitz Wong.

Hi, my name is Brian Myers.

I own a small brick and mortar store in Chinatown International District.

I am asking that we do not reduce the commercial affordability program.

My business and my family's business has created a small little store here in Chinatown, and we really need these commercial affordability programs for us to stay afloat so that we don't get displaced.

And we're talking about equity, and we're talking about how Businesses like our own need to survive in Chinatown while we have Amazon and other international corporations coming in and being able to clear us out and make it so we don't have a home.

We really need commercial affordability and as much as we need music and things like that.

And we appreciate all that you guys are doing.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kevin Fitz Wong, followed by Yvette Dinesh.

Hi, I'm Kevin.

I'm an educator and renter in the CD, and I'm calling to urge all Democrats in the City Council to vote yes on the proposal of the People's Budget and Socialist Council Member Shalma Sawant in rejecting an austerity budget and increasing the Amazon tax by $140 million so that the richest in our city pay for the economic crisis recession.

This budget is a question of who pays.

If Democrats want to claim this is not an austerity budget, they must tax the richest corporations and not foist these costs on the workers through more expensive car tabs.

If Democrats want to claim they support frontline workers, they should not have slashed pandemic hazard pay for grocery workers back in August also.

So I urge council members to oppose the mayor raiding the Amazon tax to fill the already massive police budget and instead expand the Amazon tax by $140 million.

Democrats should support Council Member Sawant's amendment to fund the $3.5 million to make abortion access free for all and make Seattle a true abortion sanctuary, as supported by the MLK County Labor Council.

I also urge the council to support Council Member Sawant's amendment, rejecting wasteful expenditure of $101 million for SPS shots, fire tech.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Yvette Dynish, followed by Penny O'Grady.

Good afternoon, Council Members.

Yvette Dynish, Rainier Beach resident.

executive director of the color goes garden club we feed the community twice a week.

With that said I get a post a lot for after-school snacks for could win a promise that this take so if you can buy some sugar tax money to help fund that the coalition already collaborating to distribute funds evenly.

Also, I'm hoping they're still fighting for the sbd EMT program evidently it saves lives and that's a great thing.

I agree with Harriet Walden to keep Lake Washington Boulevard open.

And I also agree with Reverend Walden on, there needs to be a better accountability when fundings are granted to some organizations because they're not doing what they say they're doing.

I'm just saying.

And also, just two quick questions.

Whatever happened to the Pronto bikes?

And also, what happened to CSO, Community Service Officers that were in Rainier Beach?

Thank you for listening, and keep up with the good work.

Thank you, our next speaker is Penny O'Grady followed by Thomasina Schmidt.

Hello, I'm Penny from district six.

I support the solidarity budget.

Please vote to create municipal affordable social housing and please vote to abrogate 80 ghost cop positions.

Funding priorities too often have life or death consequences for people who are served by policy.

Priorities also have health, safety, aesthetic, economic, and quality of life impacts for everyone.

Investing enough in physical and systems infrastructure that get at the root of problems is what is required in this moment if we are ever going to create a city that works for everyone rather than investments that essentially grow problems by creating more trauma such as sweeps.

Seattle remains a desirable place to live in spite of all we've been through in the last two and a half years.

We now have a smaller SPD than we did in early 2020. Though we still have far to go to build a more inclusive, caring, and equitable city, I propose the current reality is that less policing is good and right for Seattle.

Vote to abrogate 80 ghost cop positions today.

Stop hurting people.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Thomasina Schmidt.

And Chair Mosqueda, there's nobody left signed up in person, so we'll continue with the remote list.

Good morning.

My name is Thomasina Schmidt, and I'm the Executive Director for Seattle Neighborhood Group.

We are a local nonprofit focused on community safety and crime prevention.

I'm calling to ask for your support for Council Member Morales' amendment to restore some funding to our Safe Communities contract and to add inflationary parity to our Rainier Beach, the beautiful safe place for youth contract.

In the council's budget, there is a proposed second cut to our safe communities budget by 167,000.

This is deeper than the first proposed cut from the mayor's budget.

With the second cut, our budget will be reduced to 221,000.

That's more than half of our current budget.

The second cut would completely gut our program to staff.

I know that this is a tight budget season and council members are having to make very difficult decisions I also know that one of the priorities of this council is to advance a reimagining of policing with a larger civilian response.

Our safe communities in Rainier Beach, a beautiful safe place for youth contracts help to achieve this goal.

Thank you for your support and consideration.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Robin Thompson followed by Valerie Schlorin-Ritt.

Hi good morning.

My name is Robin Thompson.

I am a renter in District 2 speaking today in support of the People's Solidarity Budget.

I urge my own district council member Tammy Morales and other Democratic council members to vote yes on the proposal from council member Sawant to make this big business pay for the crisis fund free abortion and support working people reject the austerity budget.

Do not draw any of the budget away from human services funds.

Please also back the approved funding for Clean Greens Farm and Market, who provides free healthy food to low-income people.

Please fund the Northwest African-American Museum, especially at a time when areas in this country are aiming for erasure of actual history.

And when we know the history of racism in Seattle, redlining, incarceration, and widening net worth gaps for Black households, the city needs to work toward equity and has a long ways to go.

Fund Clean Greens.

Do not give any more money to SPD Please stop homeless sweeps, find actual solutions, affordable housing, emergency shelter.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Valerie Flauret, followed by Amaritha Torres.

Good morning, council members.

Item 132 adds $50,000 to examine creating an affected persons program, APP, a small budget item, but a big opportunity.

It would convene a work group to look at all aspects of a program to offer assistance to families and survivors in cases where police use of force or violence is under investigation.

This service should be independent from the city's police accountability system and should examine a right of appeal for OPA findings.

Families and survivors of police violence are largely ignored by our accountability system.

but every death or injury has a devastating ripple effect.

Recognizing that is central to true accountability.

So please approve the budget for an affected persons program and support item 141, removing $1 million a year from the police budget with ShotSpotter.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Amarithia Torres followed by Raquel Jones.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Cameron Theotouris.

I live in District 2, and I'm speaking on behalf of the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence.

I'm here today to share appreciation for all the council members who supported preserving the full inflationary adjustment for human services contracts, especially Council Members Mosqueda and Herbold for your leadership in this area and for speaking at the rally on the 8th.

It's also great to see support for food banks, access to reproductive care and affordable housing.

Gender-based violence survivors certainly rely on these supports as they heal from the impacts of abuse.

However, we were disappointed to see that survivor-driven advocacy to survivors of gender-based violence was not funded.

Survivors are still out here surviving.

Survivors deserve to have their courageous disclosures of abuse met with a robust network of well-resourced advocates they can call upon when they need help.

We will continue to advocate for the needs of survivors and more sustainable funding for our work.

We look forward to working with you all towards that goal.

Thank you again to the council for all your effort in this budget process and for the time to speak to you today.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Raquel Jones followed by Reverend Robert Jeffrey.

Hello, I'm here to support and show appreciation for the mayor's inclusion of the budget for SDSI funding.

We appreciate their continued support, but we are asking council at this point to please put in place the amendment for inflationary parity for Rainier Beach, a beautiful safe place for youth funding.

This is community safety that has been executed by a community based or a series of community based organizations for a number of years.

And we've seen great success to the tune of reduction of crime in the Rainier Beach area of 30 percent.

We've seen In addition to that, we are also asking that the shot water, not the city's budgeting.

These have been inaccurate, and they've been a problem for other cities.

And they've removed it from the budget.

Please don't put something in place we end up having to take away.

Thank you.

Have a good day.

Thank you.

I'm going to read people that are showing us not present in case you'd like to call in before public comment ends.

First, we have Alex Fay, Austin Price, Sierra Jones, Steve Williams, Michael Maleni, Tanisha Scott, Richard Finley.

Hello.

My name is Robert Jeffrey.

Okay, hold on just one second.

I'm sorry.

And then we also have Steve Williams, Michael Mulaney, Tanisha Scott, Richard Finley.

Sorry.

Okay, go ahead, Reverend Robert Jeffries.

Hello, my name is Robert Jeffrey.

I'm Senior Pastor of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church and I'm calling in support of Council Member Sawant's budget amendment, the people's budget, and say yes to the increase in the Amazon tax.

I'm also want to support the women in black and support an end to the suites that displace and criminalize poor rather than giving assistance to those that are in desperate need.

I also am calling in support of the African-American Museum, Northwest African-American Museum, which is doing a tremendous job in our community.

And I'm also calling in support of Clean Greens, which has created a youth, rainbow youth farm this year to teach youth about how to create fresh vegetables and grow organic vegetables, also to help give food to the most vulnerable in our community, a gateway to helping those people understand the need for community food systems.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is James Mile, followed by Lanisha DeBard-Delebin.

James, you might need to press star six.

Greetings, everyone.

My name is James Miles.

I apologize for the background noise.

I'm at the airport, but I didn't miss my opportunity to speak.

I'm the executive director of Third Stone, the organization running the 50th anniversary of bumper shoot.

This is a local festival beloved by Seattleites and people all around the world.

We're launching something very new.

adding a workforce development program, training 17 to 25-year-olds from marginalized communities, black and brown youth, LGBTQIA plus youth in the creative careers.

This is an important conversation.

As we know, the creative sector was hit pretty hard.

And we also know that Barbershoot will be able to revive the creative economy in our lovely city and keep people happy, entertained, and of course employed, most importantly employed, especially our younger demographic of youth.

Original budget, the mayor proposed budget included $100,000 to support that.

And I'm hoping that gets reinstated.

Thank you for your consideration and hope everyone can come under the umbrella of our pursuit.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Lanisha DeBardelaben followed by Sierra Jones.

Good morning.

I'm Lanisha DeBardelaben with the Northwest African American Museum.

and a board volunteer with the New Hope Community Development Institute.

We urge council members to stand with council members to want amendment to add $500,000 to fund the Northwest African-American Museum's reopening and $200,000 for the Clean Greens program that's creating a healthier future for our neighborhood.

The Northwest African-American community is an absolutely essential and beloved organization that is building cultural intergenerational wealth for the Central District community in innovative, educational, and impactful ways.

This museum is a cultural gem for children, for elders, for families, for artists, and for all.

The museum needs this city to significantly invest in the museum's vital community presence.

Thank you, council members, for supporting agenda item number 183 by throwing away to fully fund the Northwest African-American Museum.

Thank you, council members.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Sierra Jones, who will be followed by Michael Maleni.

Hi, this is Sierra Jones.

I'm calling in on behalf of my business that I was able to open.

I opened a space inside downtown Seattle through the commercial affordability program that was funded.

And so I would like to call to ask that you guys do not defunding the commercial affordability program.

The Seattle Restored Program has allowed me as a Black queer woman to open a space downtown Seattle unlike something that's been there before and be able to create community and bring events and over 40 Black-owned businesses into a storefront downtown.

And it's something that's unheard of and we're able to do that through the funding that we receive from the Seattle Restored Program.

And this type of program removes big, removes barriers for a lot of small business owners to be able to open spaces.

And so I urge you to not defund or reduce funding for the commercial affordability program.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our last speaker is Michael Malini.

Hi, my name is Michael Malini.

I'm a renter in District 3 calling in support for a few items outlined in the solidarity budget, including keeping parking enforcement within SDOT and out of SPT, support for the amendments removing the 80 ghost cop positions that are proposed, and keeping shots flatter out of Seattle.

Also support all cuts to SBB, including cuts for an advertising campaign, new guns, and retention bonuses, and support pedestrian and bike improvements where they're needed most.

Additionally, jumpstart funds should be kept for their intended use.

And I hope the council will vote yes on council member Morales's amendments for funding for a municipal housing program, as well as council member Stroud's amendments to raise emergency prudent funds.

Additionally, I support council member Sawant's proposed 140 million budget add to the Amazon tax.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And that concludes the signed up remote speakers.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

Thanks again to everyone who dialed in and provided public comment over our last three public hearings and now nine committee meetings.

This does allow for us to move on with other items on the agenda.

The first item on the agenda is the voting process and overview.

I want to thank all of the folks who provided public comment today, members of the community for your feedback.

This has informed the balancing package that was presented.

It also has We're going to move on to the next item on the agenda.

The next item on the agenda is to inform the proposed amendments that councilmembers have put forward for today's consideration.

A quick orientation to the agenda in front of us.

As councilmembers will see there are four groups.

Group A includes a series of amendments that address the emergency Next is group B, which is a consent package.

This is a series of amendments that make up the balancing package released on Monday.

And where there were minor changes that comported with the initial amendments included in the balancing package, those were included in group B.

If there was an existing amendment, it was swapped out if it was similar to the original proposed amendment that was included.

If we receive new information about changes in revenue needs, some of those items were adjusted, but the content of the balancing package as released on Monday is largely reflected in group B.

Group C includes a consent package of additional amendments.

These are a series of amendments to the balancing package that I, the chair, find favorable or friendly to the underlying budget and would signal adoption as part of this consent package to be added to the balancing package.

Group C are mostly items related to policy ideas previously discussed in committee that I would have liked to have included in the chair's balancing package, but was not able to at the time or the idea had not been presented yet.

And so at this point, we have put it into a consent group, Group C.

group D are single stand-alone amendments for individual vote.

I want to note that just because an amendment is listed in group D, this does not indicate the chair does not support it.

I may be supporting ideas in this list of amendments that are stand-alone items in group D, but the reason that they are listed as stand-alone amendments is because they are ideas or approaches that I believe warranted additional discussion from each of the council members for their consideration to include each of these items.

So as it relates to groups B and C, council members, you will hear from central staff in a second about the process, but I want to reiterate, you do not have to pull an item just to speak to it.

You do not have to pull an item to speak against it, especially if you do not have an alternative to make it self-balancing.

It is better to state your caveat or objection to a certain item when voting on the overall package instead of pulling it.

The same is true for amendment items that you like.

If you have sponsored an amendment, if you're proud of something that was included in either the group B consent package for the balancing package or the group C consent package for additional amendments for consideration, please consider not pulling it.

I'm very excited to talk about each one of those amendments that council members are excited about, but encourage you not to pull those items out of the consent package to speak to it.

We will have plenty of time to highlight what was included in the budget, what you championed and fought for, what drove you to want to put that forward, and we'll have lots of time to thank the community partners that maybe you worked with to get those amendments included.

But please consider that caveat when considering items in groups B and C.

Pulling things out merely to speak in favor or opposed, especially if you do not have a way to make those changes self-balancing, is highly discouraged and not what today is for.

So as we go on to group A, I want to make sure to turn it over to central staff.

My understanding is I do not have to ask the clerks to read each of these items into the record, so I will just be noting where we are at in the process of the amendment.

Right now we are on item number two, which is voting group A.

This is for individual votes, and I will turn it over to I would like to invite central staff to walk us through the process, any additional information you'd like to offer for context orientation as we start to consider these amendments, and also I would encourage central staff, if you can, to share some of the information that we received about the emergency fund contribution and in partnership with the city's budget office, the information that we are looking to solve for today, especially as we look at group A.

Thank you.

Good morning.

For the record, Esther Handy, Director of Council Central Staff.

I am going to hand it over to Deputy Director Panucci to walk through the process questions, and then I'm happy to share a little bit about the emergency reserve as you move into Group A. Thank you, Director Handy.

Good morning, Chair Mosqueda, committee members.

I was going to do some walkthrough of the process for today.

Chair Mosqueda covered the bulk of it, so I will just quickly highlight a few pieces to reiterate.

Some of the process can get a little wonky today, and so we will return to these slides as needed just to remind people of the process.

If it comes up later, but I just wanted to reiterate a couple of points that chair mosquito covered in her opening remarks.

And just now, as we are moving into the agenda items, as we've talked about committee previously, the state budget act requires that Seattle adopts a balanced budget where estimated revenues.

meet or exceeds budgeted expenditures.

The mayor's proposed budget and the initial balancing package met this requirement.

And that is why it's important today that we end the day with all amendments to the proposed budget and to the balancing package that we maintain that balance.

So if there is a situation where There is an action that would throw the package out of balance.

I may ask the chair to recess so we can strategize, but I would encourage you to think through those actions and we will flag them if that comes up.

Moving on to the next slide.

These are just the groupings as Chair Mosqueda described.

I won't walk through that again.

Again, votes A and D are up for individual votes, and group B and C are both organized as consent packages.

Next slide, please.

So I won't walk through this.

This is the process that Chair Mosqueda just talked about and how we will handle group votes.

And again, you can make a comment on any item in the group without having to remove it for individual action.

If you do move to remove an item from the group, it will be taken up after the vote on the remaining items in the group and it will be considered in alphanumeric order.

Moving on to the next slide.

This again is just reiterating how you can remove a CBA from a voting group and when to make that request.

So we'll just return to this as needed during the committee discussion.

Next slide.

And this just describes what in writing, what I orally described in terms of the voting So if you would like to remove an item for individual vote, you can do that when the chair calls on or makes that request of her colleagues.

At that time, it's not a substantive discussion about the item you were asking to be removed.

It will just be removed and taken up later.

And if you have a substitute option for that item, you would make the motion to substitute when we get to consideration of the items removed from the group.

Next slide.

So this is the key when an item is removed for individual consideration.

Well, after that item is moved and seconded, when we get to the items for individual consideration, if there is a substitute, you would make a motion to substitute your new option for the option that was in the original group.

The first action is the vote on the motion to substitute.

If you vote yes on the motion to substitute, you are essentially voting yes on the new option.

So I would just say, if you prefer the substitute version, you would vote yes on the motion to substitute.

If you prefer the original option that was posted in the group, you would vote no on the motion to substitute.

And we'll likely return to this slide later in the process.

And then finally, Just after we get through today, which I'm optimistic we will do efficiently and smoothly, we will return to committee on the 28th.

That will be for the committee to just take final action on the budget adoption ordinance and a few other key budget legislation that those recommendations from the committee occur after the votes today.

And there may be some technical corrections.

that we bring before the committee just to make sure that everything is tight before you take final action on the 29th.

On the 29th, all 25 to 30 pieces of budget legislation will be before the council for final action, including the bill that adopts the budget overall and the capital improvement program.

Also included in this presentation that we won't walk through today, right now, but that we do have scripts for the various actions that may occur in committees today.

And again, if at any point a council member would like us to post those on the screen, please just let us know and Patty will bring the slides back up.

Happy to answer questions on the process.

Otherwise, I will turn it over to Director Handy to make a few comments about the emergency reserves.

Please go ahead and turn it over.

Great.

Seeing no questions, I'll just make a couple of comments here before you move into group one.

Central staff shared, I shared just sort of an email memo with council members last week, and some of this was outlined in Tom Mikesell and Director Panucci's original memo on general fund balancing earlier in this process.

The city's general fund has two key emergency Reserves one is the revenue stabilization fund.

The target balance of that is 5% of general tax revenues and that fund is currently at 67 million policy maximum.

We also have an emergency fund for the general fund which was significantly depleted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Resolution 32024 was adopted in 2021 and updated the emergency fund policy to allow for a five-year repayment period of that emergency fund between 2022 and 2026. And so the proposed budget included a contribution of $10 million in 2023 and $10 million in 2024. Some of those contributions were reduced in the balancing package, which is allowable under current policy.

However, with further internal conversations with the city budget office and central staff, we have determined that removing those contributions may be a little bit lower than is prudent for the city and recommends achieving at least a $5 million a year contribution to show a continued steadied investment in a rebuild of that emergency fund over the next few years.

So as you move into group A, you will have some options in front of you to increase contributions to the emergency reserve and happy to field further questions as you consider those options.

Thank you very much.

Are there any additional comments from central staff to open up our discussion for today?

I have a question in the audience, excuse me, in the gallery here from Council Member Strauss.

Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

Yes, thank you, Chair.

And regarding this conversation about the emergency reserves, I know that both of you addressed this.

Can you maybe tease out and pull out for me, when did we know this information?

What did we find out?

And what is the impact if we had not made a change since last week?

Sure, Council Member Schaus.

I would say that there has been an ongoing conversation between central staff, the City Budget Office, and Council members about what is the appropriate level to contribute to our emergency reserves.

We have considered things like how does this impact the City's bond rating?

We have considered how does it impact the revenue forecast that came out last week, which showed a significant reduction in city revenues available for this budget.

There have been a variety of conversations and pieces of emerging information that inform the point that you are at today, which is that our recommendation is achieving a contribution of at least $5 million a year to that emergency reserve in order to show the city's steady rebuilding of that fund over a five-year period as defined in financial policy.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Yeah, I would just I would just add to that, that I want to be clear that the initial package was consistent with the current financial policies for the city related to the emergency fund.

As Director Handy highlighted through additional conversations with the CBO and all of you and others within the city family.

And given the economic forecast and all of that, it is advisable to maintain or to contribute, as Director Handy described, at least $6.5 million as we are all hearing news about what the future economy looks like and going into a recession and those sorts of things.

But I just wanted to be clear that the original package, along with this proposal, is consistent with the city's current financial policies for the emergency fund and contribution to reserves and overall would based on what is on the agenda is likely to exceed that 5 million annual minimum.

Thank you, Alan.

Please go ahead, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

Maybe I'll ask you if what I am saying is correct.

What I learned last week is that due to a changing economic forecast, we needed to put more dollars into our emergency fund to maintain the status that we have with our bond rating of AAA.

If we had not made that change, we would be putting at risk our AAA status.

Is this, and this has all been changing because of the economic forecast and many other variables.

So that's the information I received.

Is this also consistent with what you understand as a change from last week?

Council Member Strauss, I would describe it a little bit differently.

Overall, the mayor's proposed budget proposed to contribute $10 million in 2023 and $10 million in 2024 to the emergency reserves.

That is based on the plan that was discussed in last year's budget deliberations as well to pay back the emergency fund based on the use of the emergency fund early during the COVID COVID pandemic.

The initial balancing package would have reduced that contribution to $1.5 million total over the biennium.

This revised package based on, yes, the updated information that reducing that contribution in the short term may have an impact on the city's ratings as well as concern about the availability of resources as we are continuing to get news about the the economy.

So yes, that is accurate.

But I would say it is it is vice it is advice.

It is best practice.

It's based on what the city has been discussing in terms of contribution.

But overall, it is a still a reduction to what was in the mayor's proposed budget in terms of the contribution to reserves.

I think it's, I think, thank you so much, Director, Deputy Director Panucci.

I think that it's fair to say that everybody from the CBO office to central staff, my office, we are trying to work with limited resources and recognizing that it was well within and consistent with existing policies to suspend a contribution, we made a policy choice to do that and in the two to three days after releasing it, in good faith and in partnership with CBO once learning that there may be concern.

we collectively wanted to seek to close that.

And there is no interest in trying to debate whether or not the worst case scenario wouldn't play out.

If the suggestion is jointly that we would be best served by providing at least $5 million a year to the contribution, there's no questioning of the need there, I think from Council or no interest in a division of approach in terms of how to get at least $5 million into that with the executive either.

Council President Morris.

Council President, you are on mute.

I raised my hand.

Thank you.

I was chatting away and no one could hear me.

I'm glad that Council Member Strauss asked that question.

I know that we had this conversation offline too, Council Member Esqueda, that the conversations on reducing the contribution in the short term or coming back after meeting with CBO, looking at what our exposure would be in our AAA bond rating and the capital projects that are in the queue, and coming back to at least a $5 million per year contribution.

So I'm going to share what the public often doesn't always know what we have to do.

It's not anything shady.

It's just we found out a lot of these economic forecasts afterwards and had to go back and recalibrate our thinking on what our policies are and where we could replenish the reserves, but at the same time remaining true to the policies and the commitments that we made.

And Council Member Strauss, correct me if I'm wrong, based on our conversation, that's what kind of changed my thinking too, right up until Wednesday on the contributions and what our concerns were about our reserves.

So I think what I was trying to do, and I think Council Member Strauss can correct me if I'm wrong, I think what he was trying to do as well is kind of put into context what our fiscal thinking was.

and how it changed after we realized that we needed to put some money back into the reserve fund.

I just wanted to share that part of the conversations that we are having with CBO and central staff and of course you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

I think we're ready to move on.

Council Member Strauss, anything else?

I agree with what Council President wires said and just, I think for the public's understanding, we continue to get updates and changes to our economic forecast this, I think, this information is a downstream impact from the revenue forecast.

And while we thought we were in a good place a week and a half ago with this funding level, new information changes our current status, and this is where we are.

And we do need to protect our AAA bond status if we want to keep our capital projects on track.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much.

Okay, colleagues, we are at group A, and there are three items in this category.

I want to, again, thank central staff for orienting us and getting us started on today's agenda.

Central staff, if there's nothing else from you on this item, I will go ahead and move some policies to get us going.

Pausing to see if there's anything else from central staff in terms of orientation.

Okay.

Excellent.

So colleagues, as we were just discussing, there is an interest in addressing the contribution needs.

I understand that there is an amendment in front of us that would address this contribution need, and it is an amendment to S.020B.

So I will go ahead and move S.020B-001.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, it's been moved and seconded.

The legislation is now before us, and Council Member Strauss, I see on the agenda here, and we understand that there is a substitute.

A substitute to S.020 would be your substitute, S.020C.

Council Member Strauss, would you like to move your amendment?

Yes, thank you, Chair.

I move to substitute S.020C in place of S.020B001.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Strauss.

It has been moved and seconded to substitute S.020C-001 in place of S.020B-001.

Before the sponsor addresses this item, I am going to ask central staff to describe the substitute to the committee in fuller detail.

Turning it back over to central staff, if you have any additional context for us.

Thank you, Chairman Mosqueda.

There were a number of analysts involved in drafting these amendments, so I'm going to give a high-level description of what is different in the substitute, and then if there are questions about any of the specific items included, I will ask my colleagues to jump in and answer those questions.

So, as was presented in committee previously, the option in the original package would have Retained the city's parking enforcement unit in S dot would keep the base funding in S dot for the parking enforcement officers and would also add some additional funding to supplement the S dot funding with some addressing the overhead issue as well as some additional resources for the parking enforcement officers.

option, the substitute option that Council Member Strauss is presenting today would accept the Mayor's proposal to move the City's Parking Enforcement Unit from SDOT to SPD.

So that is one of the key differences between the two options.

The result of accepting that proposal would be that there's about $16.6 million of general fund over the biennium that was included in the initial package that can support other Council priorities.

And so instead of providing that funding to SDOT for the parking enforcement officers, this option would do the following.

It would add a million dollars in both 23 and a million in 24 to the Human Services Department for recreational vehicle parking and storage associated with non-congregate shelter.

It would add $1 million in 2023 to HSD to increase funding for a contract with the Public Defender Association for the Let Everyone Advance with Dignity lead and co-lead programs.

This is in addition to the $4 million over the biennium that is included in an amendment in group B.

It would add $1 million in 2023 to the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department for city hall park activation.

This is in addition to the $1.3 million that is also included in a separate amendment in group B from the initial package.

It would add $100,000 to the Office of Economic Development to develop, in coordination with the Seattle Information Technology Department, a scope, schedule, and budget to implement a permitting portal for economic activity permits, specifically farmers markets, special events, and film permits.

It would add $250,000 in 2023 to the Human Services Department for mobile advocacy services with flexible financial assistance for survivors of gender-based violence.

Adds $1 million in 23 and $500,000 in 24 to SDOT's, excuse me, the Department of Transportation's Structures Major Maintenance Capital Improvement Program project.

And it would add $300,000 in 2023 to the Seattle Center for the Memorial Stadium Redevelopment project that would increase the cash financing available to support that program to $1 million in 2023. That's adding to funding that is also included in a separate amendment in group B, as well as funding to issue $20 million of debt to support the capital project beginning in 24. In addition, this budget action would allow the council's budget package to that would.

Transfer $6.5 million in 23 and $6.5 million in 2024 to the emergency fund, and it would allow for a couple of the proposed reductions that were included.

In the initial package to not move forward, so funding would be retained.

That includes and funding that would support, I think, work in the Seattle Police Department, or would be transferred to the Seattle Police Department, and would allow retaining funding for a position in the Civil Service Commissions to expand strategy and policy work.

That is the key, or that is a high-level summary of that amendment.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Strauss, you are recognized to speak to your amendment.

Thank you.

Colleagues, before you is my amendment to transfer funding of parking enforcement officers from SDOT to SPD.

This move does not indicate my desire for parking enforcement officers' final home to be within SPD.

And I continue to support Council Member Mosqueda's and her work through the interdepartmental team to understand what PEOs need and what department is best for them to have their final home within.

While I believe PEO civil enforcement needs to be housed outside of SPD, a few issues over the last week have led me to bring this amendment forward.

The understanding we need to refill our emergency funds as was just described, especially knowing that without doing so, every capital project in our city could have some increased exposure.

The knowledge as well, the ongoing knowledge that while we have moved supervision and budget for parking enforcement officers from SPD to SDOT, the unit has remained in place in SPD for most intents and purposes.

Lastly, if we do not make this budget alteration to filling, if we did not use PEOs as the budget alteration, we would still need to fill our emergency fund, and to do so, we would be cutting important projects and programs.

If I was to have brought my own amendment forward, I would have only brought forward an amendment that fills the emergency fund and funds programs and projects that fund homelessness responses for people living in their vehicles through shelter enhancements, non-congregate shelter, outreach, and tiny homes.

What is before you today and what I've presented before you is an amendment that includes my top priorities of refilling the emergency fund and increasing homelessness services and shelter enhancements for people living in their vehicles and priorities I've heard from each of you during committee over the last week.

While I do not believe PEO's final home should be an SPD, I do believe that this is a prudent decision at this time.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Are there any additional comments?

Seeing Council Member Lewis, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I do support the amendment that's in front of the council from Council Member Strauss and appreciate the accommodations within it that Council Member Strauss has made for some of the other priorities on the council dais.

The decision that we're faced with isn't one that I think anyone on the council is particularly excited about, given the overall situation that the budget is facing from the revenue forecast that we received in the middle of our deliberations that has a significant impact, both on the operating and capital ambitions of the city.

I believe this is the appropriate place to balance the revenue shortfall given the differential of providing the same service between SDOT and SPD for where the parking enforcement officers should temporarily be parked while we determine where their permanent position within the city government will ultimately be.

My understanding from talking to the city budget office and council central staff is it would cost approximately $8 million for the parking enforcement to do essentially the same function in SDOT and $740,000 for them to be housed in SPD in terms of the additional overhead costs.

And given that differential and given that we don't anticipate the people of Seattle really experiencing a significant difference in their interactions with parking enforcement, whether they're housed in SPD or housed in SDOT.

That seems to be the best place we can make up the difference without impacting basic services to the people of the city.

So I do support this amendment path forward.

I do wanna make a comment, because later we are gonna discuss the process that Budget Chair Mosqueda has laid out to continue to assess the permanent home for the parking enforcement officers.

And I do just wanna reiterate and lift up my hope that they will eventually move either to the CSCC or to the new civilian public safety department the administration is working on standing up with a broader mandate for unarmed civilian enforcement of issues and situations that don't require the response of a badge and gun.

That is in line with the communications we received from SPIOG in 2020 wanting a broader role like that for their membership and in line with the original proposals from Councilmember Herbold and others on what the future of this workforce could be and what it would look like.

I do just want to close and say I do appreciate the additional $1 million of support for lead and co-lead, which is vital for downtown public safety recovery and strategies.

really appreciate the work that LEAD and CoLEAD has been doing in collaboration with a number of different stakeholders in the nonprofit business and labor world in the downtown community to make downtown a safer place and to lead with empathy and compassion in getting people from the streets into housing and with wraparound supportive services.

So I do appreciate that additional $1 million getting us closer to the goal of the level of investment we want to see in that program.

And we'll be voting for the amendment proposed by Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Herbold, Vice Chair, please go ahead.

Oh, thank you so much.

Just want to add a little bit of history for the context around this amendment.

In November of 2020, the Council adopted a budget that moved parking enforcement to the CSCC.

The mayor's office was directed to form an IDT and a report to council on the progress made towards moving parking enforcement to the CSCC was required.

In April of 2021, the former president wrote to us to remind us why it was that SPIOG had proposed that parking enforcement be moved to the new Community Safety and Communication Center, instead of s.

PEOs are highly trained, 60% are BIPOC and or LGBTQ, and there are 12 languages spoken fluently by PEOs.

Here's an excerpt from the former SPEOG president.

We are trained in de-escalation tactics, familiar with police procedures, community service driven, and most importantly, we are public servants who want to serve our community.

We propose that Seattle follow the national trend of civilianization of certain police functions.

Cities such as Los Angeles, Denver, San Francisco, Eugene, and Philadelphia all have programs in place that dispatch civilians as an alternative to armed police officers.

Under the CSCC, we propose to take calls that do not require an armed response, reports for minor thefts and car prowls, respond to non-injury collisions, automated enforcement such as red light and school zone cameras, and a greater role in traffic control for special events.

But in April of 2021, she writes, we were shocked to learn that the mayor never planned to move parking enforcement to the CSCC.

Instead, the mayor's office and SDOT continued to make extensive plans to move parking enforcement to SDOT.

We, the Council, were then extensively lobbied by the Mayor's Office and SDOT.

And then last fall, we reversed course and voted against the PEO's vision of reimagined policing and moved them to SDOT.

And then after we did, again, against the PEO's original proposal, the prior administration watched the transfer that they fought so hard for.

It's no surprise that PEOs are now organized to get out of SDOT.

They never wanted to go there in the first place.

I'm voting in favor of this budget action, even though I do support the PEO vision for a civilianized role, At this point, it seems the only thing to do, given the $16 million cost over the biennium of undoing Mayor's proposal to move them back to SPD, given the fact that SPIOG has surveyed its workers and they want to return to SPD, and given that Mayor Harrell, in his budget speech, acknowledged that SPD may not be the forever home for PEOs, I look forward to learning more about the executive vision for the workforce, work force who has expressed such a strong worker-driven vision for how they can best serve the community.

And I thank Council Member Strauss for the role that he is playing in bringing this amendment forward to accomplish a number of other things that we would not be able to do otherwise, not the least of which is the emergency fund transfer.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Herbold.

Council Member Nelson, did I see your hand up?

I took it down.

You're gonna pass, okay.

Are there any additional hands?

Seeing none.

Thank you again, Council Member Strauss.

I'll say some, oh, excuse me, Council Member Sawant, please go ahead.

Thank you, sorry, I didn't mean to unmute myself at that moment, but I appreciate it.

I, I intend to abstain on this question of substituting this proposal to take the parking enforcement back into the police department versus the original proposed position in the balancing package of keeping the parking enforcement in the Department of Transportation and not in the police department.

I certainly, just speaking overall, support the reducing of armed policing.

I certainly have spoken repeatedly not the least since the George Floyd movement broke out, of the tremendous dangers of having a police force acting like an occupation force, which they certainly did, especially during the height of the protests.

And I have also spoken in my office, the People's Budget Campaign every year has spoken relentlessly about the need for non-policing solutions for the problems of our society, including public safety, which as statistics show, needs addressing economic and social inequality.

However, none of these substantive issues are honestly being discussed here and my message is to working people and activists who are paying attention right now.

In 2020, when Seattle's democratic establishment on the council wanted to pretend that they were supporting the demands of the BLM movement at the height of the justice for George Floyd uprising, they used this idea of defunding the police by saying that they were going to do that by transferring the accounting line for parking important officers from the Seattle Police Department to the Department of Transportation.

At the time, and my comments today are very consistent with what I have said since 2020, at the time, I described this as an accounting trick because it had literally zero substantive impact on the essential questions of police accountability and the nature of policing in our society.

It changed absolutely nothing about parking enforcement and only changed what department's budget cuts, sorry, cuts the checks to parking enforcement officers.

or writes the checks to parking enforcement officers.

This ruse was convenient for our Council Democrats who desperately wanted the thousands of working class people protesting on the streets of our city, really tens of thousands at the time, to believe that they were being heard without making any substantive change.

Because ultimately, the allegiance of the establishment is to not just the police department, but really, the police department, like any other branch of the capitalist state, is serving the interests of the ruling class, the billionaires, the wealthy.

Now, the same thing is happening in reverse.

And again, reverse of that reverse.

The mayor would like the people to believe that he is taking crime seriously, while at the same time, refusing to do what is actually necessary to make our neighborhoods safer, which, as I said statistically, is to reduce inequality, including by measures like increasing taxes on big businesses to pay for affordable housing, Green New Deal, good paying union jobs, homeless services, and so on.

And at the very least, making sure that there are no cuts relative to what services were needed compared to last year's budget.

So the mayor proposes to reverse the accounting trick to claim he's refunding a police department that was never defunded in the first place.

It is a debate about nothing intentionally crafted to distract from the serious issues of inequality police violence police accountability.

and community safety.

My office will not participate in that distraction, and I will be abstaining on this and the subsequent two votes which are linked to this agenda item.

We need an elected community oversight board that has full powers over the police department, including hiring, firing officers, subpoena powers, and issuing department policies and procedures.

The other issue under discussion in relation to all of this is how to restore the city's emergency funds and how to make sure that the most essential and the bare minimum services and needs of our city's vulnerable people are funded.

Later on, on today's agenda, a budget amendment from my office and from the People's Budget Campaign will come up for a vote which will, if the council passes it, will restore the emergency fund and at the same time restore all the cuts in the proposed budget by increasing the big business tax rate of the Amazon tax, but I will speak to that more when it comes for a vote later in today's agenda.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Council Member Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I am going to be abstaining as well in this package.

I will acknowledge that we are in a very tight budget situation.

We definitely need increased funding for the services that Council Member Schaus is suggesting.

But I can't in good conscience expand the footprint of SPD.

I feel like this whole process, as Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Sawant have spoken to, was rather performative from the beginning.

The previous mayor didn't show good faith in trying to implement this program, keeping crucial implementation challenges from the council, keeping that information undisclosed.

And as we heard in public comment this morning, the culture of the PEOs, at least in part, still demonstrates a policing posture in the way that they interact with the public.

And so I don't agree with what some have said about the idea that the public experience with PEOs will be unchanged regardless of which department they're in.

So for those reasons, I will be abstaining from this vote and subsequent votes related to moving the PEOs.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Morales.

Are there any additional comments?

Seeing none, Councilmember Strauss, I'll make one more comment and then I'll turn it back to you as the sponsor to see if you have any closing comments.

I want to thank Councilmember Strauss for his work to bring this amendment and I appreciate the spirit in which it was brought given the difficult budget choices we made this year and the recent news that we discussed from last week.

This amendment will address the emergency fund contribution needed, and the total contribution ends up being $13 million across the biennium.

That's at least $3 million more than we needed to, at a bare minimum, provide.

And I think it's a good indication that our city continues to remain on solid financial ground as we make tough decisions in this budget.

I appreciate that the investments in the amendment are being first targeted to the emergency fund, and given the late stage of this budget, I also understand, as Councilmembers are probably painfully aware of, given their budget amendment process, there's very few places to pull revenue from.

I appreciate that Councilmember Strauss has tried to do the right thing in ensuring the financial viability of our city and is making this contribution first.

While I appreciate this contribution, you can tell from the balancing package that I released, maintaining the PEOs at the Seattle Department of Transportation was a priority for me to make sure that folks were not moved as we looked for the long-term home.

This is not the policy direction that I had originally articulated.

we're going to continue to work to find a long-term home and I believe councilmember for various units, but specifically the parking enforcement unit within our city, and which department can best house this unit.

I do also think that it warrants additional security about what happened to these individuals, both the parking enforcement officers and the supervisors during their time at the Seattle Department of Transportation, and I look forward to partnering with the mayor's office, council members, community, labor, as we figure out these longer-term discussions about the permanent placement.

Thank you so much, Council Member Strauss.

I'm going to turn it back over to you.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

The last thing I'll have to say is that as I've, you know, I have my district office at the Ballard Customer Service Center and I get to interact with PEOs somewhat regularly.

And I think it's important for us to remember in this moment that we have a lot of work to do to understand what they need as employees on forward facing employees on behalf of our city, what they need from their department, from their supervisors and within their unit, and that they are not just moved around from department to department.

And that is what this interdepartment task force is tasked with doing, is understanding what are their needs, what department should they be housed within, and how does their civil work complement and interface with criminal work that SPD does, with non-criminal work just civil service work that s.does and and how that all comes to play.

You know the commercial and commercial and vehicle enforcement unit of SPD is another one that is similar to this that has to complement between Washington State Patrol and s.

There's a lot to find out.

We've got a lot of work to do, Council Member Mosqueda.

I'm excited for that work.

And while I don't believe that the PEO's final home should be in SPD, this is absolutely a prudent move to make at this time.

Thank you, Chair.

Excellent.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the motion to adopt the substitute?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Abstain.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council Member Swant.

Abstain.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda.

No.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

6 in favor.

One opposed.

2 abstentions.

Thank you very much.

Madam clerk.

The motion carries and S dot 2, 0, 2, C is now before us.

Are there any additional comments?

Not seeing any additional comments.

Okay.

All right.

Madam clerk.

Could you please call the

Oh, she's coming off mute.

Was that a yes?

Yes.

Thank you.

Council President Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Abstain.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Abstain.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda?

No.

Six in favor, one opposed, two abstentions.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries.

And S.020C001 is approved.

That got us through the first two items.

We are now onto item four, which is related to the actual fund contributions.

I move to approve CBA FG901B001.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Madam President.

It has been moved and seconded to adopt CBA FG901B001.

I'm going to turn it over to central staff to walk us through this amendment, and then I will make some comments.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

This is essentially what I described as part of S.020C that was just approved by this committee.

This council budget action facilitates of a contribution of $6.5 million in 23 and $6.5 million in 24 to the emergency fund.

And so the action in this amendment is to reduce the proposed $10 million transfer in each year that was included in the budget as transmitted by the mayor by three and a half.

million dollars.

And it is sponsored by the Budget Committee.

Thank you.

I'll make a few comments and then see if there's any additional questions or comments, colleagues.

As the sponsor, I want to make sure that folks know that this is the follow-up to Councilmember Strauss' motion and what the council just approved to ensure there was additional funding for the emergency reserves and appreciate your support as this makes those contributions for the city's fiscal stability and outlook.

Is there any additional comments or questions?

Hearing and seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the approval of CBA FG901B001.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Orosz?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

the motion carries.

all of the items in group A, is that correct, Central Staff?

Okay, here's what I'm gonna suggest.

Usually we go until one o'clock, but given group B is up next, I'm gonna suggest that we do a recess from 1225 to 125, and that we will reconvene at 125 in Chambers.

Does that work for folks?

Can we do 130?

Say that again?

We have until 1.30.

You can have the 1.30.

That friendly amendment is adopted.

We will go ahead and recess if there's no objection till 1.30 p.m.

and we will reconvene in council chambers or remotely.

Thanks for all your participation this morning.

Madam Chair?

Yes, Council President.

Do we stay on this Zoom number or do we get a new one?

You can hang up and dial in on the same Zoom line.

All right.

All right.

All right, folks.

1 30. We'll see you after your lunch recess.

Have a good lunch recess and we'll see you at 1 30 p.m.

Take care of the.