Select Budget Committee 102723 Session II

Coming back to the Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee meeting, we will reconvene from recess.

The time is 2.01 PM on Friday, October 27, 2023. The committee will come back into order.

Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll?

Here.

Here.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Present.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Chair Mosqueda.

Present.

Nine present.

Excellent.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk, and thank you again for facilitating this morning's public comment.

We got through an hour and a half of public comment.

I appreciate everyone who dialed in, and colleagues, I appreciate your patience as we go through the 53 amendments That our colleagues have to amend the chairs balancing package that was released last Friday.

As a reminder, we are on item number 10 out of 53 that gets us all the way through the 1st page.

If you printed it out, like, me, I'm looking at 2 counts president.

Uh, we do then still have another 7 pages to go.

So I'm going to ask us to exercise restraint in our comments.

I do want to be able to hear from the chair.

Excuse me, that'd be me.

I do want to be able to hear from the sponsors of the various amendments so that we offer you some time to explain the desired changes, enhancements, tweaks, reductions that you have proposed.

But I will encourage us to stay within 4 minutes for each item that will get us out of here by 5 PM.

Everybody it's Friday.

I know you want to get out of here by 5 on Friday.

What's going on this weekend?

And I'm sure that would be appreciated by all involved.

So, let's go ahead and continue.

I'm going to turn it back over to central staff and I think again, Patty, for teeing up these items on the screen.

and to the communications team for all of the work that you have done to make this information really accessible to members of the public.

We have a handy cheat sheet in front of us that will be displayed on each of the items, and I'll turn it to the sponsor to make some comments after the item's been read in, and then open it up to see if additional people would like to make comments.

Again, you do not have to add your name even if you are supportive.

If you feel very strongly that you'd like to be listed as a co-sponsor, of course, please let us know, and we will make a note of that before we go on to the next item.

Uh, thank you, deputy director and director for being with us.

We also know your entire central staff team is probably watching as well.

So, uh, thanks to all of them as well.

Let's continue with with item number 10, 10 of 53 of the proposed amendments to the chairs balancing package.

D.

O. N.

001.

Item 10 is sponsored by council members Morales, Lewis and herbal.

This would add 100,000 dollars from the jumpstart fund to the Department of neighborhoods for resident assembly to set policy priorities for city wide neighborhood, economic development and resilience.

This work is meant to complement the downtown activation plan space needle ideas work group.

This would be balanced by reducing by 100,000 dollars of jumpstart funds proposed it for the office of economic development in the 2024 proposed budget adjustments for developing space needle ideas for downtown Seattle.

This would leave 400,000 dollars of the 500,000 proposed for that.

Okay, and just a quick caveat for people following along.

Space needle ideas don't actually relate to the space needle itself.

They're supposed to be sort of large concepts in nature.

I see my colleagues reacting.

Took me a second to grapple with that.

So we're talking about big, innovative ideas as the catch-all there under space needle ideas.

So I'll turn it over to you, Councilman Morales, but I just wanted to offer that explanation.

Thank you chair and thank you to council members for mold and Lewis for co sponsoring earlier in the budget process.

The chair did talk about her desire to see a yes, and approach when it comes to economic recovery for downtown and for our various neighborhood commercial districts throughout the city.

So, excuse me, this CBA would fund convening of a city wide assembly of residents from different parts of the city, every part of the city, representing kind of an array of experiences and insight into how our city as a whole.

Can recover economically how we can prosper together the assembly framework has been tested around the world on different issues and in all cases really allows residents to be directly involved in the decision making process, particularly in a comprehensive plan.

and in a comprehensive manner.

So as Ali mentioned, this would be particularly around the economic development element of the comp plan.

My colleagues know the idea of democratizing access to decision-making power is important to me.

I dare say it's important to all of our constituents.

I personally hear stories for, hear ideas for how to improve the quality of life in our city neighborhoods.

from my constituents almost every day and ideas that have really made our city better for everyone have always come directly from our constituents.

So this funds a facilitated, direct, deliberative conversation with constituents across the city.

including downtown, to implement big ideas where they live, work, and play, and gives all of us the opportunity to co-create a vision for citywide economic recovery in Seattle.

Thank you, Sharon.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Any additional comments on that?

Thank you.

Good job leading by example in under four minutes.

Council Member Nelson.

And I don't mean that it's just for the prime, but I'm going to go to Councilmember Nelson.

Sorry, I'm just putting on my protect investments in the future of Seattle economy in OED hat here and just ask why why.

Is there another segment of the jumpstart fund that doesn't go to economic revitalization that this could be more appropriately used for?

And why does it have to be in Don and not OED if we're talking about economic resilience?

So just wanted a little bit more.

I wanted to understand a little bit more about that.

Sure.

Council Member Nelson, I'm happy to share a little more information with the floor offline.

I did talk to Director McIntyre this morning and have agreed that we will keep talking about this.

As we said at the top, a lot of this language still needs some finessing before there's a final version.

So we are in conversation with him about that.

Okay.

Thanks, Council Members.

All right, let's go on.

It looks like FAS 001S, item number 11.

This item sponsored by Councilmembers Herbold, Morales, and Chair Mosqueda would request that the Office of Labor Standards and the Department of Finance and Administrative Services provide recommendations on the potential use of network company fee revenue to support implementation of the app-based worker paid sick and safe time ordinance.

Thank you so much.

I'll turn to Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Council Member Morales for your co-sponsoring this amendment, for your continued support for app-based workers.

As we heard loud and clear in public comment, these vulnerable workers in this under-regulated industry are calling out for us to put our money where our mouth is and fund the enforcement of the protections we have approved as a council.

My priority for the fee revenue has been to fund the pay-up legislation that Councilmember Lewis and I have worked hard to pass with the support of this council and the act-based workers.

Our minimum compensation ordinance will guarantee workers are receiving fair pay, and our deactivation ordinance will guarantee workers will receive fair consideration.

The SLI requests OLS and FAS to use reported fee, I'm sorry, reported potential fee revenue next year to provide a recommendation to city council.

on whether or not the collected revenue could be used to fund enforcement of the gig worker paid safe and sick leave protections.

It makes no commitments to cover the additional enforcement of this additional gig worker law, but requests a report and recommendation from the Office of Labor Standards and FAS next year.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Are there additional comments on this one?

I'll just add my note of appreciation.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

I think as you've continued to lead on this effort, you're really helping to invest and provide structure for an industry that has not had a lot of labor standards before.

And there's a lot of work that needs to be done to ensure that workers get the information they need about their rights and that those who are acting as companies or employing people, even as independent contractors, that they know about their responsibilities as well.

The paid sick and safe time enforcement has already been very impactful and there have been numerous settlements that have happened that demonstrate how critical this standard is and what impact it has on our workers and public health of our community, especially in the middle of ongoing pandemic and communicable diseases as we head into flu season.

I'm excited to support this.

I think it underscores the effective models that we have coming through community partnerships, which just also help OLS support the hardest to reach workers.

And it's exciting to know that we are continuing to fold in feedback that we get from employers and hiring entities as well about how to do outreach and education as well for employers.

So happy to support this and really appreciate the ongoing work that you've done in this area.

Madam Chair, may I ask one more sentence?

Yes.

Just super short.

Because you referenced how your legislation protecting gig workers as it relates to PSST, I really wanted to just lift up for everybody's awareness that the enforcement of that law resulted in $1.6 million For 600 workers after found that door dash violated the legislation that you let on.

So that just really shows how important enforcement is.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Madam vice chair and also for folks for us to.

Talk about the multiplier effect.

We know that especially when low-wage workers get paid the money they're owed, it has a multiplier effect for our local economy.

People spend that money right away in local economies in small businesses.

So it's good for our local economy as well as the just and right thing to do.

All right, moving on to number 12, please.

Number 12 501 a.

Sponsored by council member so on, and this is the 2nd, walk on amendment would add 40Million dollars of jumpstart funds to the general funds planning reserves to increase resources available to sustain.

future wages secured in the city's contract negotiations with the coalition of city unions.

Similar to item number nine, this is balanced by assuming a passage of an amended version of council bill 119950 that would increase the jumpstart payroll expense tax rates to increase annual revenues by at least 40 million dollars.

And if I could just take a minute to answer council member Herbold's question from earlier, both this one and the previous the item number nine that contemplates increasing the tax rates, it would be a relatively small increase to the existing rates if applied.

What I have to date from our forecast office is an initial estimate.

I just had done initial ballpark of like, if we wanted to increase it by 50 million, what would those rates look like?

And it is about, it ranges based on the category and the tier, but it would be about 0.1% to about 0.4% Which is equivalent if applied proportionally across all the categories and the tiers and that's about a 16.1% change increase for each of the categories.

So it's relatively small.

Once it is determined, which are both if both of these are moving forward, I will get specific estimates for a 20Million increase for a 40Million increase and a 60Million increase of both both move forward.

But I just want to provide that context.

Council Member Herbold, I do want to turn it to Council Member Sawant to do a quick summary and then I'll come to you if that sounds okay.

Great.

Council Member Sawant, please go ahead.

This budget amendment, as Ali just described, increases the tax rate of the big business payroll expense tax by a tiny fraction to raise an additional $40 million to increase the city's reserves to make funding available for the city negotiating a new contract with the Coalition of City Unions.

My office has discussed with city workers who have been offered frankly outrageous contracts by Mayor Harrell's negotiators, offers like 1% or 2.5% raises that have been reported in the news fall far, far short of keeping up with the rate of inflation, which means that the city is asking city workers to accept.

really what is a massive wage cut in real terms.

And this is only one issue.

There are also many essential vacant positions in departments across the city.

We've seen workers speaking in public hearing about the serious understaffing in many departments.

My office has spoken with workers in parks and recreation about services they cannot provide because of the vacant positions.

I'm not on the city's labor committee, which does the negotiations of the coalition of city unions.

So there is no danger of this budget amendment breaking any confidentiality rules.

Everything in this amendment is based on publicly available information.

I don't believe that there is any excuse for asking essential city workers to accept a wage cut with or without this budget amendment.

However, making these funds available will make it crystal clear that the city has the funds to offer a wage increase that at the very least is not a wage cut in real terms.

Additionally, we have heard many presentations about future budget shortfalls largely projected because of inflation.

These additional revenues would help to prevent future austerity.

Council members may remember back in 2020 when the Amazon tax was first voted on, I proposed an amendment to increase the tax rate to make funding available to prevent austerity without dipping into the funding intended for housing and the Green New Deal.

That amendment did not pass at the time and every year since it was passed, including this year, every year since the tax was passed, I mean, including this year, funding intended for housing and the Green New Deal has been diverted to close budget shortfalls elsewhere in the budget.

This budget amendment would help close part of that gap.

I think council members have a choice who will pay for future recessions and economic turmoil, big business or workers.

That's really the question.

So the question is, you know, in relation to that is, will the city ask workers to take a wage cut?

And as I said, in real terms, it is a wage cut, even though nominally their wages might increase by a small amount.

Or will the city tax the biggest and the most profitable businesses.

As with the previous amendment, this amendment is a very small increase in big business taxes.

I appreciate the co-sponsors for that amendment.

Similarly, as Ali laid out, this is, again, a very small increase.

The smallest tax rate for businesses with a payroll between $7 and $100 million would be between .7%, it would increase from .7% to .79%.

And for the largest tax rate, which is businesses with a payroll of over $1 billion, would increase from 2.4% to .71%.

I really appreciate Council Member Herbold.

for working with my office on the budget amendment and the language.

And I, my understanding is that you support it in its current form, but I will, of course, we'll wait for you to speak on that, but I also urge other council members to co-sponsor this budget amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Hurdle.

Thank you so much.

And yes, I would like to add my name to this amendment.

I want to just be very clear, though.

I am very confident that the negotiations with the coalition of city unions will come to a favorable and fair for our workforce outcome.

So my support of this amendment is not out of any concern about the current.

negotiations and its likely outcome.

Rather, I'm looking forward to the ability of the city budget to sustain the increases that will be negotiated in the next contract.

We know that 85% of the growth in expenses over the next five years for the city is attributable to anticipated labor agreements.

And so my support of this budget action is focused on ensuring that in the out years, 2025 and beyond, we have sufficient funds in the planning reserves to sustain those wages.

And I really urge council members to support this very, very modest increase in jumpstart And, you know, if there's anything that we can do today to help address the gap in revenue that the city will be experiencing next year and beyond, this is a really, really important action for us all to take.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Council Members.

Council Member Herbold, adding her name to number 12, FG501.

I'll also be adding my name to 501. I want to make a few comments about this, though, in alignment with what President 7 and said this morning from protect 17. Um, it needs to be abundantly clear that the majority of the cost for the city union contracts do not come from the general fund.

70% of the costs are associated with public utility services and 30% of course, do come from the general fund.

In addition to ensuring that there is a fair and just contract for city employees.

We also need to ensure that there's additional funding for the programs and the services that those city employees provide.

I'm going to be supporting this amendment.

With the intent to ensure that there's additional funding for the general fund to continue to enhance and provide those city services that city employees provide.

I do want to ensure, though, that as this amendment is being evaluated and sorry, evolving that it's not solely tied to just the coalition contract, because if per se, this amendment does not pass, I do not want that to signal to the city that there is not sufficient funds as president of 7 and said this morning.

There should be a prioritization of the funding going into city workers.

I think this amendment is critical for adding additional emphasis on the need for us to have additional progressive revenue and revenue at our fingertips to expand city services for the growing needs of the growing population.

So with that, I will be adding my name as a co-sponsor here, but wanted to make sure that it's very clear that the contract of city employees is a core government service should be provided as such in the budget to the degree that this amendment can help us identify additional general fund revenue to support these core services and employees.

That's fantastic.

Reminding our colleagues that 30 percent of the coalition for city union contracts, 30 percent is general fund, 70 percent is actually coming from largely public utilities.

Just underscoring that revenue challenges that the city is facing necessitate us to ensure that there is additional revenue for the sustainability of services.

We're talking about services for elders, for kiddos, for small businesses, for the health of our community.

Supporting this amendment and ensuring that there's broad support for services to be provided to our city, I think only enhances the viability of our local economy and the health of our community.

With that, Council Member Mosqueda, Council member mosquito, adding her name to F.

G.

5 0. 1. Okay, let's go on to 0 0. 1.

Okay, thank you.

I am going to turn it over to director handy to walk through this next.

Good afternoon, committee members.

I'm going to walk through the Human Service Department amendments.

Next, HSD 1, sponsored by Chair Mosqueda and co-sponsored by Council Member Herbold and Morales, would add $360,000 general fund to HSD for a 2% provider pay increase for continuum of care contracts.

These are those contracts funded by the Federal Housing and Urban Development agency administered by King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

This would be in addition to the 7.5% inflationary increase in the Chair's Balancing Package applied to these contracts.

I'll note that in development of this amendment, some of you have heard the cost number of $385,000.

$360,000 is listed here and we'll be refining that total as we refine this amendment.

This is funded through a replacement of FG 801 in the Chair's Balancing Package.

Which would increase the transfer from the jumpstart fund to the general fund.

This amendment would revise that transfer up to the full amount authorized in the 2024 import endorsed budget, which was 84Million dollars.

It shares package transfer just over 83Million dollars.

This brings it up to 84, adding 663,000 dollars to the general fund for general government purposes.

And this amendment would use 360,000 of that.

You'll see 2 amendments later that use more of that funding.

Back to you.

Thank you so much.

I also just wanted to say, in relation to the last item, just as a reminder for folks when jumpstart progressive payroll tax passed in 2020, we had already included in the spend plan as codified as originally intended 84Million dollars for the 1st, 2 years to prevent austerity and reductions and services.

that was always anticipated to go to the general fund.

So that was not a compromise for those first two years.

This year and last year, excuse me, this year and next year were negotiated as part of a compromise given the potential cliff that was there.

So I just wanted to offer that for the record on where general fund investments have come from from Jumpstart.

As it relates to HSD001, this amendment is a follow-up on the investments that we made in the chair's package that was an investment into the continuum of care contracts That ensure that additional, excuse me, human service provider workers were not left behind the HUD contracts do not include a continuum of care for service providers.

And this amendment adds the full funding needed to provide both the 7.5 cost of living adjustment and the 2% wage equity increase for the continuum of care contracts.

The amount included in this amendment is 360,000 dollars.

As you noted, thank you very much to central staff.

However, there is additional work to be done in the next week to refine the amount.

As you heard from central staff initially, it was, um, uh, there was a different number that was published, but we do believe that we are at the right amount now.

So, thank you so much to the.

Community members who've written in on this, including Allison, who just sent the full floor, a letter expressing their support for this item.

As we've heard from many in our community, we know that it's important to ensure continuity of services.

And 1 of the best ways we can do that for this vulnerable population is to ensure that we're paying them an adequate wage.

There's much work to be done to actually pay an adequate and appropriate wage to these workers as.

Um, noted from the Seattle coalition against homelessness this morning, council member, she made reference to council member Herbold's resolution.

That was really calling for us to get to a 7% increase in base wages by dividing that between the 3.5 increase this year and 3.5 increase going forward.

Uh, this budget that we have received does include a 2% increase, but they did note that we are not there yet on the base wage.

So, still work to be done on the base wage, but we are bringing everybody up to that 2% wage adjustment and applying the inflation adjustment across all of these contracts to ensure that the continuum of care contracts.

Um, are included, I want to thank council member herbal again, and council member Morales for their sponsorship of this.

And I know that they had a lot of support for the legislation that we included in the base shares package already.

So, thanks for letting me build on this and apologies, colleagues and to central staff.

I did not realize that we were leaving this amount out in our original proposal.

Otherwise, I would have tried to address it last week.

I would like to add my name to this amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Salwan, adding her name to this item.

HSD001.

Okay, let's go on.

HSD002A is sponsored by Council Member Lewis, co-sponsored by Council Members Morales and Strauss.

It would add $501,000 to HSD for inflationary adjustments and a 2% provider pay increase on $5.2 million of funds this year that are expected to be carried forward for contracts administered by the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

The proposed budget adjustments included these inflationary adjustments and wage increases on all of the base contracts at KCRHA, and these would provide the same increases being funded by one-time resources.

I'm going to explain the reduction, which will be used for this and the next item.

The reduction, I'll remind you that the mayor's proposed budget included $916,000 in HSD for the relocation of Rosie's Tiny House Village in the University District.

This is a tiny home village on Sound Transit property that will be developed in the future.

In issue ID, there was a discussion about whether it would move in 2024 or 2025. The CBA and the one that follows would remove this funding from the 2024 budget and spend it on the proposed additions.

The CBA would also make a reduction of equal size in the emergency fund and set those sides in reserve in case Rosie's Village needs to be moved in 2024. Thank you.

Council Member Lewis.

Uh, thank you, madam chair, and I want to thank everybody who's been calling in and advocating for tiny villages, tiny house villages during this budget process.

This amendment.

Seeks to address.

Some of the challenges that we have ongoing around provider pay, and this is something that's very well known among colleagues on this council.

So I won't belabor the point really critical for our future competitiveness in this area.

Very important for public safety, public health, our ability to move people from the street out of 10 encampments into some place with privacy.

Um, that is warm where they can be cared for in looking for funding sources.

The relocation of Rosie's village as Esther just broke down is, I think, an appropriate funding source, given that we don't have a high level of confidence that that village is going to be removed over the course of next year to a different location.

However, in the event that it is my, this.

Amendment does envision a contingency whereby a small portion.

Of the city's emergency fund could be used to offset.

Uh, that, um, uh, cost of going through with the relocation in the event that that is something that occurs.

I think we can all agree, given our ongoing state of homelessness, state of emergency, that a modest use on a contingency basis of the emergency fund is warranted for the flexibility needed to accommodate the triage of needs here.

Of course, no triage of need is higher than making sure that we are raising the standard and ability of our service providers to do this work and attract and retain people to do this work.

With that, I humbly submit this amendment for the consideration of the council.

With that, I will yield back to you, Madam Chair.

Chair Mosqueda, you are on mute.

Sorry about that.

Council Member Savant.

I would like to add myself as a co-sponsor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Sawant adding her name to HSD002.

Council Member Peterson.

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Thank you want to have a line item in the budget that supports relocation costs, because what we're doing at this site is we're building permanent low-income housing.

We're going to build a low-income housing tower to have dozens of low-income housing units.

Presumably enough for more than enough for everybody Rosie's to live there.

There does need to be a temporary relocation so that you can then start construction.

Obviously.

So I think that.

With a combination of these 2 amendments, 14 and 15, if there is a way to preserve some of that relocation money, because the lease currently does end in the middle of.

in 2024. So, and I know Sound Transit's eager to get moving.

They've already issued the request for proposals with the our office housing.

So maybe there's a way to compromise and have retained the line item for relocation for Rosie's as proposed by the executive, but adjust the dollar amount so that you can also achieve these other goals that you're seeking.

Just wanted to put that out there.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Council Member Lewis, I'm going to come back to you after Council Member Herbold, okay?

Okay, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I trust the sponsor, Councilmember Lewis, will work with the District Councilmember to work out some of the issues as identified by Councilmember Peterson, but I would also like to add my name as a sponsor to this budget item.

Thank you.

Councilmember Herbold, Councilmember Herbold adding her name to HSD 002. Councilmember Lewis, did you want to offer some comments?

And then I'll go to Councilmember Nelson.

Just briefly, I appreciate Councilmember Peterson's remarks and would just signal for central staff and for Councilmember Peterson, my interest in exploring the preservation of a line item and some resource here as we iteratively go through the process of these amendments.

I did just want to put on the record, happy to look into how we might accommodate that and appreciate the creative suggestion from Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Nelson.

So, I, I want to understand more what why we say that we're not confident that this money will be needed in 2024. we just got an email from Abel Pacheco at Sound Transit, basically asking us not to do this and, you know, this.

It sounds like they're pretty sure that this is going to happen next year by May or so.

So, anyway, the point is that.

I really do want to, I'm concerned about.

Removing available resources for this for the goal of building affordable housing on site permanently.

And then I also have a question in this also applies to 15 that this says that this is 1 time funding for inflationary adjustments.

Uh, for contracts and so what.

How do we know that that's not going to be ongoing?

I mean, those positions are going to continue past 2024. so what is the thinking on that?

Council member, it looks like we have central staff off mute for that.

Please go ahead Director Handy.

I'm happy to take the last part of that question just to say that there are a series of services and contracts at the regional homelessness authority that have been funded for a variety of years, maybe as many as 4 or 5 with 1 time funds as the authority continues to look for the sustained ongoing resources that are needed to do so.

In this year, the city has identified with KCRHA $5.2 million of underspend that we are saying, please carry that forward to 2024 in order to sustain those contracts next year.

The city is doing that with eyes wide open at this point that there is not an ongoing funding source to support those contracts.

This would provide a one-time increase on top of that one-time money.

So is that work for projects that have a fixed end date?

It is not, and if my colleague Jen Labreck is on the line and has any more to add, I'm happy to pass it to her, but we sort of outlined in our central staff memo on this, it's a variety of projects that are ongoing being funded with one-time resources, so it is an issue.

Okay, it sounds like we are committing to an ongoing need with one-time funding.

That is correct.

Okay, Council Member Lewis.

Right.

I think Council Member Nelson's line of questioning is a good one.

What I would more state is it's not so, the decision to commit to the ongoing need was made years and years and years ago by previous councils.

And what I see this more, unfortunately, as an exercise for this trip of the biennium, is getting these services through to our much bigger process in the fall of 2024, where we work to reconcile the baseline of all of these competing demands and requests for resources.

So, I mean, I'm the first to admit that it hasn't been ideal that we're in a position where these very essential resources Year after year that are have always been temporary have been extended with additional temporary money into a quasi indefinite future.

I mean, the painful reality is these are very, very important and critical services and there's not a.

an alternative method that is readily apparent at this time.

But this is something that has to be a big focus for the executive and the council when we are putting together the next biennial budget and should not be something that we continue to commit to on an ongoing basis, because I'll be the first to admit that it's been very, very stressful, not just for the council, obviously, but for the people doing this work.

Okay, I'm going to take council member herbal.

Then I want to encourage us all to remember there's going to be a chance for additional debate, but happy to have some of these questions answered now, if it helps flush out the amendment, but there will be a lot of time for discussion as we vote on these council member.

The old hand, sorry, it's going down.

Okay.

Thank you all.

That was that was that was well received.

I appreciate it.

Thank you for the back and forth on that colleagues and central staff.

All right, I think we're going to go on to the next 1, just as a reminder, council member and herbal have added their names to council member.

Excuse me to 002. Let's move on to 003.

Great sponsor by council member Lewis, co sponsored by council member Morales and Strauss would add 415000 dollars to for behavioral health services, case management and other operation costs at tiny house villages and enhanced shelters administered by the low income housing Institute.

As a reminder, there was $2.5 million provided one time for this purpose in the 2023 budget.

The chair's balancing package includes 500,000 ongoing, and this is paid for with the same Rosie's Village Emergency Fund source.

Excellent.

Please go ahead, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to thank Councilmembers Morales and Strauss.

One thing the three of us have in common is Councilmembers Morales, Strauss, and I all represent districts that have had very problematic encampments in them with a significant number of community members suffering from very significant public health challenges.

In all of those cases, we have remediated those encampments because we have had well-resourced and well-served tiny house villages that have had this new, during the COVID era, service in behavioral health case management.

This has been very, very critical for the city to be able to take a higher acuity group of people experiencing homelessness than usual and serve their needs in the tiny house setting something that historically has not been the case.

It has helped to remediate encampment locations in the Chinatown international district.

at Ballard Commons Park, at Woodland Park, and downtown Seattle, and Inner Bay, and Uptown throughout our districts.

And as district council members, it's really important to us that we lead with compassion, that we give people places to go where they can get cared for.

That is really only going to be possible if we retain the service.

It is not going to be possible for tiny house villages to maintain the same acuity of need if they do not have this service.

I really am grateful to Chair Mosqueda for securing a significant amount of ongoing support in her base budget.

But we need to add to that to make sure that we can meet the level of need, and that is what this amendment seeks to do.

It does have the same fund source that Esther described in the previous amendment.

Thank you.

Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

I just wanted to add my name as a co-sponsor.

Thank you.

Council Member Selwant.

Council Member Selwant adding her name to HSD 003. Council Member Herbold.

I'd like to add my name as well.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold adding her name.

Council Member Herbold, co-sponsor to HSD 003. Okay.

Council Member President, Council President Flores.

Thank you.

My little hand thing is still broken, so I apologize for just barging in.

I'm not going to add my name to either 1 yet.

Obviously, I'll probably be supportive maybe in the end, but I want to echo what council member.

Peterson said the 916 to to move Rosie's village, but that was the general fund out of the mayor's office and working with and council member.

Peterson in doing all the work we needed to do with sound transit.

Getting the property, working with SCCI to get a permitting done.

I don't know if you've ever seen these things, but moving these villages are not easy.

We've done a couple of them on Aurora, and we were in the midst of doing one under the Durkin administration, which we will continue to do up at Northgate.

So I'm really concerned about, and I agree that we have to retain some relocation money.

I don't know if it's 916, that's what the mayor is saying, but I hope that we still have these offline discussions and come to a good place where we recognize that relocation is costly.

But the burden of that is the benefit of having tripled the space to house our neighbors, the people that are there.

I also want to echo what Council Member I haven't had coffee today.

That's the problem here.

I'm going to have to get some coffee in me.

What Council Member Nelson said, I'm always leery of one-time money for an ongoing issue that is a two percent increase for the folks that do this work.

Some of us were on the Board of Health when we created, myself, Mr. Bagshaw, and I think Council Member Gonzalez, when we created the King County Regional Housing Authority.

I originally wanted it to be a PDA for this very reason, so they could assume an issue debt, but that isn't the model that got voted.

So we ended up with this model.

We've had issues, so I don't think we should pretend that we haven't had issues with King County Regional Housing Authority.

I hope and I believe we're on the right track.

Helen Howell's a good friend, and I believe in her leadership and direction.

But again, I don't want to see Seattle Picking up the tab for everything, but also.

I think we got a really whole King county regional housing authority, not just accountable in a negative way, but it's this stand up authority to do what it was created for.

And I understand that council member.

Herbal cast over Lewis sit on the King County regional housing authority.

I don't know who will sit on it next year.

And there's been some, obviously some housekeeping matters, some labor pains in its growth, and I will continue to support it.

So I just want to reiterate that.

I really, really believe that we need to have some money in there to relocate Rosie's village because these conversations started with this tiny house village almost 3 years ago.

And so it's really comfortable.

What we like to see is, like you started it, Council Member Mosqueda, surplus land, either Sound Transit or City or whomever, goes to a nonprofit for a tiny house, a welcoming neighborhood, get the tiny house up, thank you, Lehigh, look at other sources, and then turn that into brick and mortar to bring people back and house them.

So I think the upside is, that we retain money to do this, and that we not get away from the fact of how this all started, how it all began.

So, thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you very much, Madam President.

All right.

With that, I think we're ready to move on to Item Number 16.

HSD4A is sponsored by Councilmember Sawant, co-sponsored by Councilmembers Herbold and Chair Mosqueda.

This would add 1.5 million dollars to HSD for the same services described in HSD 3, behavioral health, case management, et cetera, at tiny home villages administered by the Low Income Housing Institute.

This would be paid for with a reduction of 1.5 million dollars from the police department for a crime prevention pilot.

This is the proposed pilot to use CCTV cameras and acoustic gunshot locator system in several pilot neighborhoods in Seattle, including on 3rd Avenue, Belltown, and Aurora Avenue North.

The chair's balancing package would place a proviso on this funding until a racial toolkit and surveillance ordinance requirements are met.

Thank you.

Council Member Sawant.

So, yeah, as Ali, I'm sorry, as Esther just described, this budget amendment would cut the 1.5M dollars budgeted for the acoustic gunshot locator system, specifically shot spotter.

And we have to be clear, the Schott's water system is essentially a snake oil product, and I'll talk about that in a second.

But the proposal is to use that funding to backfill the majority of the behavioral health services funding Lehigh uses to support residents of tiny house villages throughout the And the city provided $2.5 million to Lehigh for these essential behavioral health services this year, but it was one-time funding.

Even though there is nothing one-time about the need, as we know, it's an ongoing need and the problems have magnified in our society.

Um, so the chairs balancing package contains.

$500,000 to begin to backfill this funding this year in this budget amendment would fund the majority of the rest of that funding.

It is funded as I said, by cutting the funding to purchase the shot spotter locate gunshot locator system.

Obviously, gunshots are of paramount safety concerns.

We see an ongoing problem in American society.

It has grown to just stunning proportions.

We just saw what has happened in Maine.

We've seen gunshot problems and even loss of life in districts throughout the city.

However, the ShotSpotter has a long history of simply not working as promised, issuing many false positives and creating chaos.

As a business model, the ShotSpotter Corporation donates to the election campaigns of elected officials around the country and then attempts to sell them their product.

I will not speculate about Mayor Harrell's intentions, but members of the public should know that Charts Potter executives have donated to Mayor Harrell's mayoral election campaigns in 2013 and 2021, as was reported in a South Seattle Emerald article last year.

This $1.5 million would be far better spent on essential behavioral health services rather than on essentially broken technology, technology that does not deliver on the results.

And last but not least, I appreciate the council members co-sponsoring.

Thank you.

I'm going to go ahead and call the meeting to order.

repetitive, considering the fact that we have had this conversation around acoustic gunshot technology and remember several times before, gun violence has increased, but little has changed about the usefulness of this technology in addressing gun violence since the last time we discussed it.

Mayor Howell has absolutely and correctly identified gun violence as a major issue facing Seattle that requires urgent action.

In the past, shop spotter has been a very divisive issue for Seattle.

Each in 2016, 21st and 2012, then 2016, and then last year in 2022. I'd really hoped that we would find out when the mayor proposed ShotSpotter again, that we would find out that there had been engagement with community members who have raised important questions about the effectiveness of this technology in prosecuting crimes of gun violence.

There's still a lot of concern, and it doesn't appear that that kind of engagement that I was hoping for had happened over the last year.

I am trying to keep an open mind about this technology, but again, given that it doesn't appear that any engagement or conversation or efforts to address those concerns, I just, I have to take the same position that I've had before.

Going over some of the concerns, we know that a 2021 report By the Chicago Office of the Inspector General found shot spotter alerts rarely lead evidence of a gun-related crime.

Our own city auditor conducted a review of three independent studies reviewing the effectiveness of shot spotter.

The review showed that none of them found that the technology helped police make arrests or resulted in less gun violence.

And in addition, the high number of false positives reported in cities means that already stretched thin SPD officers may end up going to locations where other sounds are being detected by the technology.

As we heard in public comment, ShotSpotter's own contract in cities says that ShotSpotter doesn't warrant or represent expressly or implicitly that the software will result in the prevention of crime or the apprehension or conviction of any perpetrator of any kind or detection of any criminal.

I know that this year the Mayor is proposing CCTV cameras attack the acoustic detection devices.

I mentioned at the time when the proposal was first made to the Budget Committee a couple weeks ago that Mayor Burgess, when he spoke to the proposal, said that there were several studies that confirmed that when the two technologies work together, they have more efficacy.

We did receive several studies just this past Wednesday in response to these questions.

But six of those studies are just about the efficacy of CCTV, not the use of the two technologies together.

It's only about how CCTV works as intended.

And so, again, these studies do not purport that ShotSpotter has fewer false positives when linked to CCTV.

And we receive an Arizona State University's Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, a guide on how to use these systems.

And that guide suggested that gunshot detection is best for immediate response and follow-up investigations where gunfire is concentrated when CCTV is with gunshot detection.

But it's a suggestion in a guide.

It doesn't say anything about it being studied to confirm that it is more efficacy.

But we do have a study from Philadelphia in the reverse, that supplementing gunshot detection technologies with CCTV video does not improve their accuracy.

The harm that's being done in cities using ShotSpotter in the way of false arrests, convictions, and even death make us alarmed with possible outcomes in Seattle if we move forward.

We are a city of the future.

We are bold enough to try new programs and lead the nation in our violence prevention initiatives, our human services, and our city programs.

But being innovative and creative means we are pioneering pioneering new technologies, not trying to figure out how to make a technology work when it hasn't worked in other cities.

I really hope that we can come together to focus our investment on solutions that are truly effective, such as the proposal for supportive services and behavioral health funding to help people with high acuity, referred to the folks who run tiny house villages, appreciate the sponsor's suggestion that we use those funds for this purpose.

Understand Councilmember Lewis has another funding source to fund the same purpose.

We're unified in our desire to create more funding for this purpose.

I know there's concerns about the revenue source that Councilmember Lewis is using, and so perhaps this can be an alternative.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Peterson.

Thank you.

And I appreciate where we're hoping these dollars go.

I support the intent of where the dollars would go.

I'm just.

Very concerned about the source of funds in this case.

I believe that.

funding for SPD's crime prevention pilot is, we need to keep that funding.

SPD, as we know, is operating with the lowest staffing levels since the early 90s.

This is a suite of technology tools proposed by the mayor that would help foster safety in Seattle, especially when we are understaffed at the police department, we need technology to help fill that gap.

And the public looks to the mayor for public safety.

And this is what the mayor is saying he needs.

So we should support the mayor on this.

And we also have heard from Reverend Harriet Walden of Mother's Police Accountability supporting this.

We've heard from Victoria Beach, head of the African American Advisory Council supporting this.

So I would be putting my faith in the mayor and Reverend Walden and Victoria Beach.

that we should try this pilot and support this suite of technology while we are understaffed at the police department.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm not seeing any additional comments.

I do want to thank the sponsor for bringing this forward.

As I mentioned, when we released the budget last Week on Friday, I remain opposed to the costly acoustic technology that's included in the proposed pilot here as the sponsors have already noted.

The data shows that it's ineffective can negatively affect police response times.

and can lead to disproportionate impacts against folks of color and has raised civil liberty concerns.

When we introduced this package last week, I said that there would be more discussion about whether this should be maintained in the budget prior to passage and the council would have an opportunity to evaluate trade-offs.

I appreciate that this is a opportunity for the council to do just that.

I want to also comment on some of the desire to make sure that we are responding to faster, responding faster to calls.

And I believe that there's an opportunity for us to do that with the new announcement that's been made this week of the new cares department and the Community safety and communication center that's been stood up in the last 3 years.

This is an opportunity for us to continue to try to identify ways to deploy non armed officers to respond to low priority calls.

And I don't think that this proposed technology as a tool in and of itself, especially given it's spotty track record is the tool to increase response times regarding response times.

There's actually a few studies that have found that there's no evidence that the small gains in response times have had.

a deterrent effect or have led to the increased apprehension of officers.

And that is a quote.

I'll also note, as I mentioned last week, ShotSpotters false alarms send police on numerous trips, including in Chicago, where they were deployed more than 60 times a day into communities for no reason and on high alert, expecting to potentially confront a dangerous situation.

and given the already tragic number of shootings within our BIPOC communities and especially imposed among folks of color and our black community, this is a recipe for trouble.

Indeed, in Chicago's Inspector General's analysis of the Chicago police data, it found that quote, the perceived aggregate frequency of shot spotter alerts in some neighborhoods leads officers to engage in more stops and pat downs.

The placement of sensors in some neighborhoods But not others means that police will be sent to incidences real or false in places where the sensors are located and that can distort.

Gun shot fire statistics and create a circular statistical justification for over policing and communities again.

I appreciate that this amendment has been put forward.

There will be more discussion about this.

When it comes to the mid-November timeline, and I encourage our colleagues to continue to look at the ShotSpotter data and the methodology that is used to provide greater evidence against the defendants in criminal cases, but isn't transparent and has not been peer-reviewed or otherwise independently evaluated.

have some additional statistics that I'd like to share about cities like Philadelphia and St. Louis that I'm not going to go into today, but we'll make sure to share that information around in addition to a comparative analysis that I believe looks at 68 other cities.

Council Member Nelson.

Thanks, I think that probably there is evidence on both sides of the argument, depending on which study you're looking at.

So, I'm not going to dig into that, but I just wanted to return to something that council member Herbold said when you, when you indicated that dissatisfaction with with outreach that had not happened.

You know, council member Peterson just mentioned a couple people that are in support.

I mentioned when this 1st came up in budget deliberations that we do have to listen to what community members are saying that they want.

And I trust that the mayor has done that, or is doing that is responding to folks that he's hearing from.

So, what does it look like to you?

What what kind of.

Community input or outreach, or you would convince you that this is something that merits funding.

That's my question.

Council member, and we also don't have to get into a debate today.

I'm happy to respond to the question.

I'm just deferring to you.

I, um, I believe.

Just like we do when we are developing policy in this body, you meet with the opponents.

And you work with them.

And you try to find a common ground.

You don't always get there.

You don't always get all the way.

But sometimes you get halfway.

And I don't think we're even halfway at this point.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much for that colleagues.

I think we can anticipate more conversation on this item to come.

And, of course, if folks do have data that they'd like to circulate amongst their, the council offices, please do feel free to share all of that.

I will be sharing some additional information as well.

Let's move on central staff.

HSD 5A is sponsored by council member Strauss.

co-sponsored by Councilmembers Lewis and Herbold.

This does a few things, so Councilmember Strauss, I'll try to do it justice, and you'll pick up any pieces that I miss.

This adds $300,000 one time to HSD for food and operation costs for meal providers in the Meal Partnership Coalition.

It is paid for from funding for RV storage.

I'll remind the committee that HSD's 23 and 24 budgets included $1 million each year for RV storage.

The Chair's balancing package reduced the 2023 amount to $834,000.

This amendment would take the rest of the funding for 2023. It would spend $300,000 for meal providers and move the other remaining $534,000 to next year to be used for RV storage.

Then the CBA places a proviso on that total $1.5 million for RV storage in 2024 to be used for that purpose.

and it requests that HSD prioritize use of any of the ender spend from RV storage for the expansion of non-congregate shelter.

And finally, the chair's balancing package includes $650,000 for food services.

I believe it's the sponsor's hope that that would be focused on food bank programs, and this $300,000 would be focused on meal services, and as we finalize amendments, we can figure out the best mechanism to do that.

Excellent, Council Member Strauss.

Director handy, you represented it very well.

I can tell you that regarding the.

Funding line item as it is program today, we have been working all year to find the locations for this RV storage and and car storage.

We have a couple locations and we're, we're getting over the last hurdles now.

And so while I would love to be able to keep the entire amount of funding for the work next year and the year following, it is also very important that we keep people and Seattleites fed currently.

And so the CBA redirects 300,000 of the funding for food and operational costs for meal providers.

The Meals Partnership Coalition is a collective of 40. More than 40 free meal providers in Seattle.

Serving more than 5Million meals annually and these meal providers are rooted in the communities that they serve providing free, high quality, nutritionally dense meals and their membership includes youth, adult shelter, youth and adult shelter, supportive housing programs, ethnic and cultural organizations and grassroots community based programs.

They also provide, they serve communities experiencing food insecurity and hunger, including people experiencing homelessness, immigrants, refugees, BIPOC communities, low-income individuals, seniors, youth, and people living with disabilities, mental illness, or addictions.

These meal providers in my district include St. Luke's Edible Hope Kitchen, Ballard Northwest Senior Center, Finney Center, just to name a few.

and they are located all across the city in every single district.

I'm sorry, colleagues, I did not call out each of the meal providers in your districts, but then also reserving the remainder of this funding to be ready to help people transition out of their cars and into shelters.

I can tell you that people who are living in their cars and RVs, having a place to store their vehicle while they try out shelters, oftentimes the barrier For coming inside, because it is their last piece of personal property and they're very hesitant to relinquish their last piece of property as through a course of losing almost everything.

In exchange for a temporary shelter, I can tell you just this week, as we resolve the part of the encampment on Leary way and Valor without a sweep, we were able to get 36 out of 37 people on the list.

1 person we couldn't find.

And 1 of the people who was in their RV that moved their RV to somewhere else wanted to come inside into a shelter.

but we couldn't store their RV for them.

And so this is real time implications and I really appreciate everyone's support on this.

Thank you chair for leading a fast paced meeting.

Noting for our colleagues, we have one hour and 53 minutes to get through 36 more CBAs.

Please postpone your dinner events.

We will try to get through as fast as we can.

Thank you.

Council member Strauss.

I don't have anything to add to this.

Thanks for investing in that last food item.

That was inadvertently not included.

Very thankful for your leadership on this.

Okay, let's keep going.

Great.

Our next 5 items are statements of legislative intent.

H.

S. D.

8 s is sponsored by council member Lewis, co sponsored by council members Strauss and Peterson.

It requests that HSD work with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority to provide quarterly reports on encampment outreach services performed by providers funded through the Geographic Based Outreach Service, RFP.

Thank you so much, Council Member Lewis.

I'll be brief Madam chair, this is a continuation of our efforts to.

Continue to get data from the regional homelessness authority via our contracting through H.

S. D.

to make sure that we continue to get updates on what our money is going toward and how we can continue to provide oversight of the authority.

I would note there are a lot of big things happening in the background with the authority through convenings with Mayor Harrell and Executive Constantine on restructurings, the effort to secure a new CEO, But in the meantime, we need to make sure that the contracts that the authority continues to hold with money remitted to them through is accountable to us at the council that we continue to receive reports on a quarterly basis that we continue to have that accountability and.

This may be something that is subject to tweaks and changes based on some structural modifications.

But in its current form, this is making sure that we are getting the touchbacks that we expect, whether it's a department or an external agency like the King County Regional Homeless Authority.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Nelson.

Just raising my hand to be added to this.

Excellent councilmember Nelson, councilmember Nelson, adding herself to number 18 HSD 0 0 8. S.

Seeing no additional hands, let's move on.

HSD 9A, sponsored by Councilmember Lewis and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Morales and Strauss, requests that HSD work with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority to prioritize the use of remaining 2023 underspend to contract for behavioral health services at tiny home villages that we have been discussing.

I'll note this is the first of two slides that have a specific request on how to use the KCRHA, any additional underspend.

All of us are very interested in looking at that underspend.

Please go ahead, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Madam chair.

I mean, again, we, we do not have a, um, an idea at this point, um, how much understand spend, if any, may be available, um, from the King County regional homelessness authority.

The past indicates that, uh, that there tends to be a significant amount of underspend.

I would note it does seem that the authority, uh, under interim director, Helen, how.

Has staffed up their contracting and taken care of a lot of bottlenecks that were probably responsible for that accumulation of underspend.

So it's not really clear how much over the course of next year will be in this category to the extent that that it is there.

I do, I do think for reasons that I've articulated earlier in this meeting.

Mental health services, a tiny home villages continue to be 1 of the most important things we need for the remediation of encampment locations and having services that are capable of accommodating the needs of a lot of people who are currently camping and would like to move inside.

And for that reason, I'm proposing this vehicle to elevate this policy concern with the regional homelessness authority and I'll yield back to you.

Thank you.

And as the central staff noted, 1 of 3 amendments, I think to the council president's comments a moment ago, you know, had the authority.

Been given the ability to generate its own revenue.

There would probably be less interest in trying to direct that underspend given Seattle's the largest contributor still, I believe, to the King County regional homelessness authority that we welcome and very excited about the additional contributors as council member Lewis noted.

There has been about a few 1Million dollars in underspend each year.

So there's no good historical data to point to essential staff would know.

But I'm looking forward to working with you, council member Lewis, and the others that are interested in that understand universe to see how we can collectively steer our priorities via a statement of legislative intent, recognizing we cannot use a proviso given that this body is outside of city budget purview.

Okay, let's go on.

Just the 10 S.

A.

is sponsored by chairman skater, co-sponsored by council members, Herbold and Morales.

And it asked the HSD work with KCRHA to prioritize the use of any 2023 underspend to provide inflationary increase and increases and 2% wage equity increases to human service provider contracts.

And that it look for up to 2Million dollars to support the specific needs of migrant and asylum seekers.

Thank you very much.

And as I noted earlier, there is a great amount of appreciation for essential staff, helping to unravel the various building blocks that make up the wage adjustments and the inflation adjustments that went with the human service contracts.

We know that there are some workers that are still not being.

Universally enhanced through the adjustments that we've tried to make in our budget thus far and part of the ask here is to ask the regional homelessness authority to prioritize ensuring that they're investing in wages for those contracts that go through the King County regional homelessness authority.

1 example of that is the services that are provided at the navigation center.

need an additional $615,000 that we do not have accommodated for in here because we're still getting information from various providers about the impact.

Of how these wage adjustments and inflation adjustments have been structured and so what we're trying to do with this is just flag for that as they finalize their end of year analysis of any available funds, they invest in creating continuity and equity across their contracts.

Number 2, the regional partners, including state partners and King County partners are.

Local jurisdiction partners around the area are asking for the city and anybody who can to help out with the growing.

Humanitarian crisis, the refugee camp that is in our area and the possibility of additional individuals coming to seek refuge in Seattle and the region we have allocated up to 2Million.

We've asked for them to consider allocating up to 2Million dollars to support efforts to support our neighbors who are coming as refugees to this region.

And recognize that there's a unique population, unique needs that are not necessarily equivalent to our traditional homeless service needs.

But anything that we can do to provide emergency housing, emergency shelter for our refugee population that's coming is appreciated.

So that's what this 1 is.

And I think there's 1 more on this topic.

Great.

Those cover the items on KCRHA underspend.

The third one was the portion of RV storage underspend in Council Member Straus' meal service provision.

So we'll continue to look at all three of those together.

Great.

Great, I'll move us to HSD11-S, which is sponsored by Councilmember Strauss and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Lewis and Sawant, requesting that the Office of Intergovernment Relations and the Human Services Department report on how they plan to engage with the state to secure funding for tiny house villages and non-congregate shelter expansion for people experiencing homelessness.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you Chair.

Thank you Director Handy.

Well said.

I'll keep it brief.

We have state property within the City of Seattle and the State Department of Commerce has money that can be applied for to create or expand tiny house villages or non-congregate shelter and we as the City of Seattle should be doing everything that we can to receive every single resource possible including that from the state.

Thank you Director Handy.

Thank you Chair Villescago.

Thank you.

I don't see any additional comments.

Let's move on.

It just be 12 s a is sponsored by council for herbal co-sponsored by council members Morales and chairman skater.

I request that the Human Services Department provide a report on how it will implement requirements in the proposed wage equity legislation regarding provider pay increases and how it will incorporate wage equity funding and considerations into its competitive RFP processes.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

Not much more to add here.

Thanks to the additional sponsors, Council Member Morales and Budget Chair Mosqueda.

Again, this is assuming passage of the pay equity legislation regarding provider pay increases.

Many of my colleagues on the council are very interested to get some confirmation that resources intended for pay equity increases are used for pay equity increases.

And so this report is intended to learn how the Human Services Department is incorporating wage equity considerations into its competitive funding process, as well as monitoring fulfillment of the obligations of providers, and ensuring that provider pay increases are in addition to inflationary adjustments, not instead of.

Thank you.

Thank you so very much.

Chair Mesquite, if you're open to it, the next two relate to domestic violence services, and I might read them both together and then let the sponsors who are the same speak to them.

Is that all right?

Sure on that on this current 1, I just wanted to.

I'm sorry, we can go ahead and move on to number 23. is that what you're suggesting?

When you're ready when you're done with this 1 yes, I do want to thank council member herbal on this item for looking at the longer term picture for how we solve for this crisis that we're trying to address in the budget in front of us.

But clearly, there's much more long term planning that needs to accompany the commitments that we put in the resolution that I believe council member herbal led on.

So, looking forward to that trajectory and the ongoing conversation, leading to a more stable budgeting process.

I can't tell you how many tables.

We have taken a look at to make sure that we've actually funded folks that the 7.5 and the 2% and it is not a pretty process to go through.

So, let's make this more simple for everybody involved, including the providers who clearly are living in a state of stress, not knowing if the funding is going to fully be there because we don't want them to result.

We don't want this process to result in a cut in wages when I think we all have the shared goal of applying inflation plus base increases.

So, thank you council member.

Please go ahead and read the next 2 if you'd like to, Esther.

Thank you.

HSD 13A is sponsored by Councilmember Herbold, co-sponsored by Councilmembers Mosqueda and Morales.

It adds $200,000 to HSD for domestic violence, mobile, community-based survivor supports.

Based on recommendations that have come out of the Domestic Violence Community-Based Responses Working Group, in partnership with the Office for Civil Rights, Human Services would award funding up to three organizations that serve domestic violence survivors and families and that emphasize a non-criminalizing approach to those who have committed domestic violence.

This one would be funded with the same funding sources as HSD-1.

That's that increase of the Transfer of the Jump start fund to the general fund to the full $84 million.

This would use $200,000 of that.

And then HSD 14, which is sponsored by Councilmember Chair Mosqueda and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Herbold and Morales, adds $250,000 for domestic violence services provided by member organizations of the coalition to end gender-based violence.

And funding would support the provision of culturally specific offerings that are targeted to specific vulnerable communities like the deaf community, BIPOC survivors of sexual assault.

This is supported by a final $100,000 of that jumpstart transfer to the general fund, as well as two other sources.

$50,000 from the mayor's office for lawsuit settling costs that were lower than projected and are not needed.

The mayor's office has confirmed this is all right to take from their budget.

and it reduces a proposed planning study at the CSCC slash care department from 607,000 to 510. That's it for me on those two.

Excellent, Council Member Herbold.

All right, getting to the right screen here.

My apologies for the delay.

Filibuster, filibuster, filibuster.

Okay, great, thank you.

Community Responses to Domestic Violence Workgroup is a part of Seattle's Office for Civil Rights Criminal Legal System Project.

The proposed program is Transformation is Possible.

It's focus is to eliminate systemic racism in the criminal legal system and advance social justice by involving communities that have been negatively impacted by criminal legal policies and.

involved in advising the city's efforts to make change.

The work group brought together local domestic violence survivors, advocates, and policy experts with experience intervening in domestic violence outside of the criminal legal system.

The primary aim was to identify and make recommendations, expand community responses to domestic violence.

Proposed funding coming out of the work recommendations is intended to support organizations that work with DV survivors and families and promote approaches other than criminalization for those who harm.

Funding would be for advocate-provided stabilization support, including possible financial assistance.

Budget action includes a consulting role for the Office of Civil Rights in the award process due to Office of Civil Rights' experience with approaches that do not criminalize and a systems-oriented perspective on how stop more harm from occurring.

We know that domestic violence is a learned behavior.

There are currently few identifiable resources for people to ask for help in unlearning those behaviors, whether on their own volition or at the urging of a survivor.

It is well established in other behavioral change contexts for instance, substance use reduction.

Self-motivation and community-based support and accountability play a crucial role in sustainable change, yet there are no widely available non-criminal options for people who need support in maintaining equitable and accountable relationships.

Though this funding supports new recommendations coming out of a report, this project should not be considered a pilot because it restarts a successful approach previously operated by Wellspring.

The project leading to these recommendations was supported by the council in the 2021 budget action that added funds to the Office for Civil Rights for the work group, and the work group was attended to give its report and recommendations to the Public Safety and Human Services Committee this summer.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And I'll just say on your item here, HSC 013, thanks for allowing me to be a co-sponsor, and thanks to Melanie Cray for a lot of the work that she did with your office as well to help identify a path forward here and to get additional information from stakeholders as well, along with Anne Gorman.

And just to echo the comments that you made, investing in and serving the community that is in abusive relationship with interventions outside of the criminal legal systems is absolutely necessary and is 1 of our most critical blind spots that we currently have that needs investment.

So, thank you for showing through this, this amendment here that we can invest in what the data shows and help serve survivors and.

and also serve people that are abusive without having to go into the harms of the criminal legal system.

On HSD-014, item 24, I thank Melanie Cray again for leading on this in our office.

This continues one-time bridge funding to the group that the group received last year, funding services to support people involved in abusive relationships.

and help make sure that they are getting their basic needs met, which helps empower them, make sure that they're safe, and stop the cycles of violence.

So thanks to the coalition for advocating for this and for their service to the community.

And thanks to Council Member Herbold and Morales for your leadership on this.

I'm happy to be a partner in this with you.

All right, number 25. Oh, excuse me, Council Member Selwyn.

Thank you just wanted to add my name as a co-sponsor.

Great, thank you very much to HSD 014 council member.

Council member Sawant, HSD 014 co-sponsor.

Thank you.

Excuse me, brings us to H.

S. D.

16 s sponsored by council member her bold and co sponsored by council members Morales and Lewis.

This is a statement of legislated intent that asks the human service department and to perform a gap analysis of the city's current investments in gun violence prevention.

compared to recommendations from the King County Regional Community Safety and Well-Being Plan, identify complementary, duplicative, or gaps in services between the city and county, and use that analysis to inform the future services provided by the Care Department.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much, and thank you to Council Members Morales and Lewis for co-sponsoring.

We have an exciting path moving forward that the CSCC is carving out for itself as the new Care Department.

So we heard last week, they're in the process of analyzing the city's public safety continuum to increase efficacies and efficiencies across the board.

Separately, the Human Services Department is analyzing our city's gun violence programming through the lens of the King County Department of Community and Human Services, Community Safety and Wellbeing Recommendations.

The Community Safety and Wellbeing Recommendations or have come out of a planning effort led by King County and informed by the participation of the Gun Violence Leadership Group, of which I am a member.

What this slide does is it puts into the record a report on work that requires HSD and CSCC to join their separate analysis analyses to be able to find out what it is our city is offering that may already be covered by county programming, what service gaps exist, that we may need to fill and what we offer that is already in alignment with other regional services and programs.

The reason why this is, we have the CSCC slash CARE involved in this effort is because there is a long-term goal of bringing over the investments that the city does through HSD in the safe and thriving communities over into the care department.

So, just a really great opportunity to collaborate, and hopefully, the result will be more efficient and effective service delivery.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Sawant.

Apologies chair, I, it's not about this item, but I just realized I didn't clarify.

I wanted to have my name added as co sponsor for both items.

23 and 24. Got you.

Thank you.

I should have clarified that as well.

Council member.

So, I'm adding her name to 013 and 014. Any additional comments on 016s.

Okay, council member.

Just the 017 is a statement of legislative intent sponsored by council member her bold and co sponsored by council members, Lewis and Strauss that would request the human service department to develop an approach to scale up funding for lead services.

responsive to the impacts of Ordinance 128-696, that's the ordinance regarding public drug use and possession adopted by the council this summer, and providing a timeline for integrating the LEAD database with city systems.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

So we have confirmed that the Mayor's proposed 2024 budget fully funds LEED at the levels in the Council's 2024 endorsed budget, but we also know that to address the additional capacity to support projected increased referral volumes to LEED that was created by Ordinance 126896, the Public Use and Possession Ordinance, I am requesting that the City report on incremental LEED funding next year needed to meet that need.

We aren't adding new funding this year or next year to meet that need, but what this approach would do, it would allow the City to scale LEED's funding based on the reports of how many referrals are actually coming in and what the capacity lead has to address them.

The estimates that we've heard from the police department are around 700 referrals in 2024, if that is actually true.

In order to meet those goals without reducing referrals in other areas like community referrals, referrals from council members, referrals from small business districts and community groups.

That's a place where LEED gets a lot of its referrals, and we don't want them to not take those referrals in order to accommodate department's referral.

So, it's important to have a structure that allows for scaling up of resources as needed.

In addition, this slide requests that the report – requests that the Department's report on efforts to improve collaborative use of the LEAD database.

The LEAD database was funded in a prior year as a result of former Councilmember Bagshaw's sponsorship.

LEAD data sharing set up to manage privacy issues.

Case managers only share what they're permitted to do so under a multi-party release of information.

And eventual goal is two-way integration of LEAD database with relevant data systems of departments, including the police department, the city attorney's office, HSD, the HealthONE program, the care department, and also the King County Department of Adult and Juvenile Prevention.

This phase is proposed to study and develop a timeline for integration.

There was a request that we actually provide funding for the integration itself, but we aren't doing so at this point because integration Integrating one system with another can be a really long and costly process.

An example is the recent mid-year supplemental where we provided $1.5 million for a project to integrate SPD system and ACSCC system.

So, again, this study would tell us how do we do it, how long would it take, what will it cost, and what are the steps?

Thank you.

Council Member Nelson, did you have your hand up?

Okay, I'm gonna...

Wrong one.

Okay, thank you, Council Member.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Let's go to the next one then, please.

HSD 201A is sponsored by Councilmember Nelson and co-sponsored by Councilmember Strauss and Peterson.

This action would proviso $100,000 in the Human Services Department for a summer youth employment program, such as the partnership between Mount Zion Church and Jensen Summer Youth Employment Program.

This proviso would restrict $100,000 of the $9.1 million general fund in HSD's youth development budget program within the Prepare Youth for Success BSL.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

Thank you very much.

So the words such as are intended to not preclude other organizations from using this money.

But this program is made possible by a pretty unique partnership between Jensen Construction, who's the contractor for the Madison Rapid Ride project and Mount Zion Baptist Church, which is providing a needed space for Jensen to store equipment in exchange for.

Um, jobs for vulnerable youth, so they have something to do in the summer.

So that's how this program began.

And in the summer, in this past summer, Mount Zion, the Mount Zion Janssen Construction Summer Youth Employment Program recruited 3 students from Rainier Beach High School to work on the Madison Rapid Ride project at the prevailing wage salary of $60 an hour for a total of 20,000 per student over the course of the summer.

And this funding is intended to support the This successful program in the summer of 2024, these are good union wage jobs and this is a, this is a union shop and the local 242 is asking simply that when these students graduate, they might consider if they don't end up applying to college and going, they might consider a pre apprenticeship program.

So.

That is the incentive for for the local in this, which I fully support.

So, in any case, the, the funding source is still being worked out.

We're still in ongoing conversations for a source of funds and I appreciate central staff working with my office to continue refining this funding source.

But I just wanted to also thank.

my colleagues Peterson and Strauss for agreeing to co-sponsor to have this move forward.

It's great to see the evolution of this project.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any additional comments?

Seeing none, let's move on to item number 28. We are on page 5 out of eight pages on the printout version.

We are more than halfway through.

We're gonna get this done by five o'clock, folks.

HSD 813B, sponsored by Councilmember Nelson and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Peterson and Strauss, would add $300,000 to HSD for comprehensive substance abuse, substance, excuse me, use disorder treatment at certified state-licensed residential facilities or intensive outpatient treatment facilities for folks in Seattle who are experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity.

This funding would be administered by the Human Services Department The CBA would replace HSD 813A in the chair's balancing package for the same amount.

The chair's proposal would fund substance use disorder and treatment to be administered by the King County Department of Community and Human Services Behavioral Health and Recovery Division, who has a pool of funding that can be used flexibly and as needed to support individual care and treatment.

Thank you, Councilmember Nielsen.

Thank you very much.

So I'm putting this forward because as written in the balancing package is a departure from what I'm really trying to do, which is provide a fast and easy way for our contracted service providers to get their clients into free on demand.

comprehensive substance use disorder treatment, described by the National Institute on Drug Abuse as comprising components at minimum, an intake and evaluation, medically assisted detox, behavioral therapies, methadone and buprenorphine for people suffering from opioid use disorder, and continuing care.

And in other words, we're talking about rehab.

Um, under my proposal, the way it works, I explained it before, but homelessness outreach workers and lead and permanent supportive housing case managers would contact 1 of the facilities offering residential or inpatient intensive outpatient treatment with which has a billing agreement and these these.

Case managers, for example, would find out if a space is available at one of the facilities at the out-of-pocket rate.

And if so, they'd arrange to transport their client to the facility, and that person would go through intake and then be admitted.

And then after treatment, the facility would send the bill to HSD, to the city, and the funds in HSD would be used on a case-by-case basis until they're depleted.

So that's how it works.

And the operative word here is on-demand, on-demand treatment.

Because when people make that life-changing decision to go to treatment, getting them on a six-month Medicaid wait list, it just is not going to work.

It's not going to meet the needs of the moment.

And so just wanting to make clear that HSD doesn't have to contract with a facility, so there's no RFQ process or sunk costs.

Instead, facilities are more like vendors on a list that we pay on a case-by-case basis, and all HSD has to do on the front end is establish a billing arrangement for people who are referred by our providers.

Now, Why is how is this different from what's there right now?

H.

S. D.

813 a would add fund would add city funding to an already existing program that direct that county program that divvies a pot of money among 35 community based providers or clinics throughout King County.

And if someone is seeking substance use disorder treatment, they can get it on an outpatient basis.

And this particular program also makes a little bit of money available to providers to help them reduce barriers for people with lower incomes whose private insurance co-pays and deductibles are preventing them from accessing SUD residential treatment.

So that doesn't help people with no insurance or Medicaid get into residential treatment on demand, which is the gap I'm trying to fill.

And more importantly, it doesn't give our service providers a tool to get their clients into comprehensive treatment if they go to the hospital, for example, after an overdose, or what we've been talking about, if they are after they've been diverted into the LEAD program following a public drug use stop.

So, this is why Lisa Dugard and other service providers that she has spoken with support this proposal.

I talked to Sharon Lee yesterday of Lehigh, the low income housing Institute.

She also supports this because this does provide an additional resource that they don't have right now.

So.

This isn't.

I don't think that this is controversial.

I think that this is an important new resource and I have heard the concern that my proposal would necessitate a new position within, but it's not really clear that it would central staff did meet with and the.

Who raised some issues, including staffing, but that conversation was based on a previous draft that in which HSD would contract with these facilities because the rapid timeline of the budget process, I wasn't able to get this new version to them.

So, in any case, Because HSD is under Deputy Mayor Washington's, is in Deputy Mayor Washington's portfolio, I talked to her about it.

And she supports my proposal because she sees the value of immediate referrals and agreed that a program set up, that the program set up and HSD directly paying facilities invoices would likely not require an additional HSD FTE.

and could possibly be accommodated by the new positions created to administer the programs funded by the opioid settlement dollars.

From my perspective, personally, even if this did require an additional FTE, nothing is more urgent than expanding our toolbox to respond to this crisis that we've got.

And my original CBA did ask for a million dollars.

So that's where my head is at.

Nevertheless, Deputy Mayor Washington did follow up with an email yesterday saying, I agree with the intent of this budget ad as described below and support moving forward.

As we discussed, this is a general framework that gets to the heart of the matter and we will work with HSD next year to work out any kinks.

So, I again, thank my co-sponsors for supporting this, this amendment to replace the existing CBA with, with the model that I originally proposed.

Thanks.

Council President.

Thank you.

I'll be brief.

First of all, thank you, Council Member Nelson.

I know you've worked really hard on this from a million dollars down to $300,000.

I want to broaden the scope.

First of all, I want to add my name as a co-sponsor, but I want to tell you why, what I'm actually trying to zero in on here.

So I think this is an opportunity for us to learn about how tribes are combating this fentanyl crisis.

The tribes had a summit two weeks ago at the Tulalip tribe.

and which allow me to lay up on many tribes, talked about the fentanyl crisis, the opioid crisis, how it's affecting any country, and not just their people, but their spouses and their children, and not just a tribal member.

But the reason why this is important to me, why I'm supporting it, is because if the tribes, I would love to see the city leverage consult and coordinate with tribes and indigenous-led organizations that have treatment facilities that are either Medicaid eligible or Indian Health Services eligible for treatment for our relatives that are unhoused.

Seattle Indian Health Board, Chief Seattle, even the Cowlitz tribe has a treatment center within King County.

A lot of people don't know that.

And all of these groups, and there are more, their client base, their target base of Of many, but most importantly, are the unhoused folks that we see, particularly in our city, our city of Seattle.

So my reason for supporting this is because I think that we should not only include Indian country and indigenous led organizations, but leverage the resources.

that our relatives are using, our tribes and our tribal leaders to combat the fentanyl and opioid crisis if we have beds available and be on a list that HSD has that says, okay, there's a list of certified facilities and we can coordinate with you.

Let's just say Tulalip tribe or Seattle Indian Health Board and we can refer you here and agencies, and if there's an opportunity to be refunded, great.

If not, in either way, the bottom line is the county, the city, and tribe should all be coordinating and leveraging resources for the dollars and for the beds and to get our relatives, particularly our unhoused, into treatment.

So that is my reason for supporting and co-sponsoring actually this with Council Member Nelson.

So thank you.

Thank you, council president, president, adding her name to.

H.

S. D.

1, 8, 1, 3, 1, 3, B, it's just the 8, 1, 3, B.

Number 28, you have more to say council member Nelson.

Yeah, I just wanted to respond to what Council President just said, because yesterday I was talking to the CEO of Lakeside Milam, where I went, and he did say, you know, sort of coincidentally to your comments that they do contract with a tribe.

He wasn't able to tell me which, but it might be more than one in Alaska.

And when someone needs residential treatment, they actually just get on a plane and they're flown to Seattle to go to This treatment facility in Kirkland, so that's precisely I don't know.

It seems as though what you're talking that seems consistent with what you're talking about.

And I wanted to mention that my, my on demand moment came at 10 o'clock on a, you know, in the evening in September of 2020, and I was able to call.

to call Lakeside Milam, and an hour and a half later, I was admitted.

And that's really important because I could have just gone to bed and changed my mind in the morning like I had many times before.

And I mention this because it's not that spaces are limited in these facilities.

It could very definitely accommodate what you're talking about, Council President.

But because I was able to get in, and if you call a lot of these facilities, they do have space.

However, they have space for people who can pay out of pocket or who have their own private insurance.

The Medicaid spots are extremely limited, which is why I'm trying to why we just need to write a check to accommodate people who lack those other resources.

So just wanted to add that.

Thanks.

Okay, any new hands?

I'm not seeing any new hands.

I want to underscore something that you said, Council Member.

This should not be controversial.

And I think it's unfortunate that this comments that have been made here and to the executive and to members of the community tried to paint this as if it's somehow divisive.

It's not.

When I was talking with you, we were trying to identify ways to directly deploy funding to reduce any barriers to treatment.

Any barriers to treatment that are there should be taken down.

That's the shared goal that I think we have with you.

The concern that I have is that creating a new line of business and providing reimbursement model for.

Individuals to be billing the city of Seattle through is a new line of business and not having an ongoing way to ensure that this is.

Something that the city is going to be standing up, we're in essence, creating a brand new program, a brand new program that it sounds like is already duplicative of something that exists at King County.

I want to correct for the record that it is not just outpatient services that are provided by King County, the King County behavioral health.

A team bird is already in contact with us and they have said that they would want to make the concept that we put forward in the chairs balancing package workable.

The direct provider conversations that I've had have talked about the concern about standing up any new programming that looks like a reimbursement model through, but there is universal interest and expanding the options for treatment.

It is not accurate to say that King County only supports.

outpatient services.

And they say, and I quote from a email conversation that they shared with us, that there is a smaller resource where there's less demand, but BirdMix available to community-based providers help to reduce barriers for people with low incomes and whose private insurance and copays deductible prevent them from accessing substance use disorder treatments, residential treatment, that is inpatient detox.

We learned in our meetings yesterday that there are not a lot of requests on this front from bird, but bird doesn't hear from people that this is a huge population of service needs.

But to the degree that we could add funding to that specifically, we could reduce access to barriers.

There is not a lengthy government process that requires people to get verified for care.

There's not weeks or days that go by until someone is processed.

And I quote, from the perspective of someone who is seeking treatment, they walk into a participating facility and show that they do not have insurance or make less than 200% of the federal poverty level and hey, presto, services are provided.

I'm interested in finding a common ground here.

This should not be divisive.

There is an interest here and making sure that funding is getting deployed immediately and in lieu of creating an entirely new invoice model that is being considered within that will not have ongoing funding and will require staffing to administer.

I encourage us to find common ground where we can support the King County model.

to deliver the exact type of barrier reduction strategies that are being articulated.

I think it's unfortunate that this is being depicted as somehow a divisive approach that was included in the balancing package.

I regret that the conversations directly with my office did not occur about ways to scale this and that our efforts to try to find a way to meet your request Are being seen as somehow in competition prior to this month, there was not language in writing that was shared with us prior to this month until I asked there was not information that was put together to articulate the proposal.

And prior to this month, it did not sound from the conversation that I had directly with the sponsor.

That there was any direct conversation with stakeholders, frontline providers who participate in this work, because there was concern that stakeholders would see this in competition with the work.

They already do.

It was clear as articulated by the comments that were made by the sponsor that lead as well as reach and and a number of other providers see any additional ways that we can enhance access to treatment as a good thing.

The difference between the 2 proposals that's being articulated is whether or not we want to stand up an invoice and reimbursement model at HSD versus adding additional funding to an existing program at King County.

If there are significant problems structurally with what King County has articulated, that would be helpful to know.

And I hope that we can continue to find common ground because I thought the interest was in making sure that the funding got directly out instead of standing up additional new programming and invoicing models through our city.

Council member Nelson.

Well, I would say that now is the perfect time last year was the perfect time for a new model because we need to, we do need to expand our efforts and we do need to help our providers get people into treatment when they want it.

And I am not suggesting that this is controversial.

At all, I was just wondering why all of a sudden my idea turned into giving our money to a county program that already exists that doesn't meet the objectives that I have just laid out.

And I thought that I read, I meant to say this program also makes a little money available to providers to help them reduce barriers for people with lower incomes, whose private insurance and deductibles are preventing them from accessing SUD residential treatment.

So I did note that there is some money for that, but again, Um, it is, um, I'm responding to something that is that that.

That I see is needed by the people that we contract with and it.

This is probably a very good program and one could make a CBA to add funding to it.

I just want to make sure that it's not just lost in a larger pot of money and it does meet the goals that I said.

So I don't consider this divisive.

I'm just trying to explain why I prefer my original model to the one that it turned into without really understanding anything about that program.

And I didn't have much turnaround time between when I was told about this $300,000 in the balancing package.

Thank you.

And what that program really was.

So I'm also on a learning curve.

Thanks, Director.

Excuse me.

Is there any additional comments from central staff needed?

I see Anne Gorman.

Hello and Gorman Central staff.

I just want to clarify in case our colleagues at King County BHRD are listening.

We're talking about two different two different programs.

The mid program is the one that makes outpatient behavioral health services available.

There is a separate program that has occasionally been able to help support costs associated with inpatient treatment.

Um, we can, we can talk a lot more about this next week.

I just want to make sure that our King County colleagues know that we're communicating correctly.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you very much council member Nelson for bringing this forward.

And again, let's continue to try to make sure that the funding gets to those so that we can reduce barriers to treatment.

All right, let's move on.

HSD 813S is our last HSD item, and it is a companion slide to the item that was just discussed.

We would request HSD report on the process by which funds allocated in the CDA would be used and provide quarterly reports on the balance of funds, the number of referrals to treatment, and the number of individuals completing treatment.

Thank you, Councilmember Nelson.

Well, this gets to 1 of the points you made chair, which is that.

This is a new model.

Yes.

And so we got to, we got to do our due diligence and see if it works.

It's 1 time funding and we'd be remiss by not checking in to find out.

Very simple outcomes, like number of people that were admitted to a facility number of people who stayed throughout the course of their.

Uh, treatment, how many people stayed a little bit longer?

How many people left earlier?

And also it, it will provide for the opportunity to give counsel that feedback and go over the course of the program.

It does, you know.

HST would already be doing this, but it makes sure that the, the balance of the program is is known.

So that is that's the intent is just this is a due diligence.

How did it work out?

No private or no private information from clients is, of course, being requested.

We're not trying to look at whether or not.

There has been relapse or anything like that.

This is simply a, you know, it's just to to check the numbers when it when this program is in process and also toward the end.

Since I did say relapse, I do want to note that according to NIDA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, it is, Addiction is considered a chronic illness, and relapse rates, according to their research, do show 40 to 60% relapse rate, which is less, they make the point of noting, than other chronic illnesses.

Hypertension, considered 50 to 70% relapse rate.

Asthma, 50 to 70%.

So these are people that are on a course of treatment, fall off, then fall back into their illness, and then re-up.

And there have been statistics thrown around, like, you know, only 1% of people recover, things like that.

I just wanted to note that there is some research on the efficacy of this kind of comprehensive substance use disorder treatment.

Thanks.

Thank you Council Member Nelson.

I'm not seeing any additional hands.

Let's go on to the next one.

MO1S is a slide sponsored by Council President Juarez and co-sponsored by Council Members Strauss and Peterson.

It requests that the Mayor's Office propose citywide policies for the naming and renaming of city-owned properties, streets, and other structures for Indigenous veterans and other Native people who have served Seattle communities.

Honorees may be identified in consultation with the Indigenous Advisory Council and federally recognized tribes.

Great.

Council President.

Thank you.

I want to just start off before I forget.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson and Councilmember Strauss for co-sponsoring this with me.

Madam Chair, if you don't mind, I have a prepared statement that I just want to end on a quick personal note, and I will be mindful of the time.

Few city parks, bridges, streets, or structures are named for Native Americans who have served Seattle communities.

or for indigenous veterans of the United States military.

And so this slide is more than just about indigenous veterans.

Much like the way we have the memorial wall at the Seattle Center to honor those that have lost and given their lives for this country.

According to 2021 research memo by our office staff, the amazing Leila Geysar, there are only four public works Besides honorary road names named after specific Native American people in Seattle, and those are Sacajawea playground, which is public schools, 2nd, elementary and then the Robert or Bob Eagle staff middle school that sale public school and chief Seattle high school, which is, of course, the public school.

So, this year sale parks and recreation revisited their park naming policy to state that.

parks, park areas and facilities named after individuals and or events shall be maintained unless it is found that because of the individual's character, the continued use of their name would not be in the best interest of the community or conflicts with the department's mission and values and commitment to becoming an anti-racist organization.

Big shout out to former Council Member Bagshaw who worked with me on the naming Policy and how we revisit that and what that means.

So, with these policies.

With policies, such as this in mind, this statement of legislative intent requests at the mayor's office and this and this city council move to adopt a revised departmental policies for the naming and renaming a city owned properties, streets and structures so that.

Indigenous U.S. military veterans and other native persons who have served Seattle communities are considered as options for the naming and renaming of such properties.

These city-owned properties are owned and managed by departments, including but not limited to Department of Neighborhoods, FAS, Parks and Rec, SDOT, Seattle City Light, SPU, et cetera.

And I hope Sound Transit will follow suit.

Honorees may be identified in consultation with the Indigenous Advisory Council or in a government-to-government tribal consultation with federally recognized tribes or communities.

via the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, that is, of course, OIR.

I want to end on a personal note, as you all like to say, lived experience note, which basically means I'm old.

Let me just say this.

While all this has come about in the last eight years, and I'm hoping we can end this chapter and start a new one, our great city should have a sense of place, space, and history that includes all historic and courageous people, past and present, that have contributed to our society, some with their lives.

This conversation and discussion debate came into full view with the naming of the John Lewis Bridge in October, 2021. Congressman John Lewis, who passed in 2020, was a paragon of the civil rights movement and a highly respected political leader for decades and a true American hero, a beacon of hope, a model of humility who taught us and instructed us and demanded us to engage in good trouble.

So, The debate came to whether how we name the bridge, which became, of course, the John Lewis bridge and a lot of folks argue that.

Why would we name it after someone who doesn't have a connection to Seattle?

Or has never visited Seattle.

So I had to respond that President Jefferson and Andrew Jackson and President Washington have never been to Seattle, but we certainly have structures named after them.

I also wanted to note that a lot of these spots that we have naming for people of color, heroes, mentors, people we care about, civil rights leaders, people in the labor, none of those people were recognized north of the ship canal.

They're all confined, if you will, or designed Or put into a regulated to a particular neighborhood like we see in the international district or the central district.

And I, on a personal note, found that offensive and just wrong.

It should be recognized across the city across this county across the state.

So, the purpose of this story is that Seattle public spaces, green belts, parks, bridges, community centers, golf courses, natural areas.

should reflect all of us, whether we physically touch this indigenous soil or not.

So inclusivity, history, honor, and representation matters.

And so for the past, I think it's my last budget, I want to thank this council for the work that they've done in joining and supporting me and our effort to not rewrite history, but recognize other folks that have done great things for not only our country, but for our city.

So thank you.

Absolutely.

Council President, thank you.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I just want to ask if I could have my name added and make a pitch.

There's a lot of folks in West Seattle who really want to see if we could get Stevens renamed.

Yeah, it's great.

And I really think the West Seattle Bridge could be renamed Little Debbie Bridge, but that's just a thought.

You just throw it out there.

Councilmember Herbold.

Councilmember Herbold at it.

Thank you.

M.

0 0 0 1 s.

Well, we do have some light rail stations that are going to be names.

That need are going to need names, so I'm hoping.

This council and the future council will keep that in mind.

That's a great reminder.

Thank you very much.

Council president.

I appreciate it.

Okay.

And, um.

And while you're on screen, happy anniversary to you and your husband.

All right, let's go.

Thank you.

Right?

2. s is a slide sponsored by council member Lewis and co-sponsored by council members Morales and Strauss.

The request that the mayor's office who coordinates the unified care team provide quarterly reports regarding activities and performance of the unified care team.

or its successor and any collaborating departments that manage the city's response to unsanctioned encampments.

Excellent.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much Madam Chair for queuing this up.

This is continuing in a long line of council measures just to make sure that we are getting touchbacks on one of the most important issues that we are facing as a city, which is our ongoing efforts to provide outreach and shelter to people who are experiencing homelessness in encampments.

This slide simply asks to make sure that we continue to get that information as the body charged with oversight in this area, that we continue to work to refine and foster a culture of constant improvement in how this work is conducted.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

I appreciate that.

You know, I just I don't see any additional hands.

Councilmember, I'll just note my appreciation for you and Councilmember Herbold last year as we worked on the edits that we did to the unified care team proposal.

A lot of work went into that.

with central staff and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority and the mayor's office.

I think we're all a little disappointed that it didn't move forward and did not yield the outcomes that we want.

I want to make sure that the information that we received from King County Regional Homelessness Authority this year is lifted up as well.

They responded that they were prepared to take on this outreach approach, but their outreach approach has But that their approach has, um.

Has been implemented in a way that's substantially quote, substantially different in planning procedures, resourcing and design and transfer of the functions.

And I think that there's a lot of work to be done to ensure that the.

Care beyond removal concept that was articulated in the unified care teams amended version in last year's budget is really brought to fruition.

Obviously, the is going through a lot of transition, but I think that conceptually, there's still a big difference between how the vision of that city budget action was defined with deep stakeholder engagement to really try to focus on.

Giving the city clear direction to focus on cleaning and hygiene and stabilization, and then ensuring that King county regional homelessness authority provided the geographic based outreach that connected individuals people focus to appropriate shelter and care really ensuring that we get back to that vision of how we accomplish the.

Um, removals beyond or excuse me, solutions beyond removals approach that was articulated in last year's unified care team is something that I hope we can stay focused on.

And while is going through transitions and hopefully has a new.

A CEO soon, I think that should be our North star for how we align any future removals to really focus on getting people access to appropriate care and beds prior to any removal posting going up.

So.

I appreciate that you're continuing to put forward.

Desire to see how collaboration can continue and hopefully the vision of that.

UTC.

document that we spent a lot of time on last year actually gets legs in the future.

Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis, for bringing this forward.

Madam Chair, I appreciate your diplomacy and your careful choice of words.

I'm going to just say I was disappointed that I felt like we were informed in a budget meeting that the reason why these funds weren't used was because of some capacity issues at King County RHA and that they were focusing on some priorities and taking a direction that was focused on core issues.

But it seems to me, from my understanding of what we heard directly from King County RHA, that it's a philosophical difference.

King County RHA uses a different approach for doing encampment removals, and they don't move people until there's places for everybody to go, and they do the intensive outreach.

This is not the approach that the city uses, and I think that the King County RHA approach is more sustainable.

It has better outcomes that are lasting, and our funding of this these staff people were intended to align the city's approach for encampment removals with King County RHAs.

It feels to me that the fact that these funds weren't spent in the way that the council intended is actually a contravention in our policy preference.

I just want to just get on the record that that really concerns me as it relates to how The council and the city interacts with King County and I'm not saying that King County is is. blocking our policy intent.

I'm just saying that in the implementation of our policy intent, there seems to be an unfortunate barrier there that I really hope that this budget action helps illuminate and address moving forward.

Thank you.

Thank you and I do think there is more to be done on your last point about how we can ensure that the language that's included in the budget is actually law.

I was, I heard yesterday from 1 of our partners that they never see the budget as dictating law or dictating process for implementation and that is troubling.

And I think that we put a lot of work into identifying ways to advance policy details.

Via the budget, so that funding is tied to those strategies.

Obviously, the legislative branch does not do implementation, but it should serve as the directive for doing the, the, the work as codified in the budget.

And again, noted in their response to us that they were prepared to take on the outreach, but that their approach has been.

has that their approach is substantially different than the city's approach.

And I think that that is the intent of the CBA from last year.

Advocates and this council wanted the approach that KCRHA takes to try and define people access to appropriate beds first before any removals are posted.

So much more work to be done there and appreciate Council Member Lewis, the conversation you teed up here for future council deliberations.

Let's keep going.

You've got one item regarding the Office of Economic Development.

OED 1A1 is sponsored by Councilmember Strauss and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Nelson and Juarez.

This would add $175,000 to OED for an ambassador program for the downtown Ballard core to support visitor assistance, outreach with unhoused neighbors, and engagement with businesses and the Ballard Alliance operations to match the sponsor's original legislative intent.

This would replace D.

O. N.

803 a in the chairs balancing package that adds 175,000 to the Department of neighborhoods to support community safety court coordinators in 3 neighborhoods.

Thank you so much.

Council member Strauss.

Thank you, chair.

Thank you.

Director handy.

Well, said sorry for getting snarky last time around council member.

Most council chair most data.

This is a technical amendment clarifying my original intent with this to stand up a new ambassador program in the downtown core.

This new ambassador program will assist with a variety of tasks ranging from supportive.

Supporting visitor assistance, providing aid to unhoused neighbors, and engaging with businesses and staff.

Ballard ambassadors will serve an important role in supporting Ballard as a great place to live, work, and visit because I host a weekly operational public safety case conferencing meeting with the Ballard Alliance social service providers, the mayor's office, and city departments.

This work is grounded in addressing real-time public safety issues affecting the neighborhood and Frankly, we need a team on the ground to complement this work to make it effective.

Last year we, and so this is all modeled off of the university districts program that is very similar.

I can tell you that we are coming up short because we don't have the ambassador program.

What is the ambassador program?

Ambassadors support the neighborhood with daily coverage and can assist DESC, PDA, and Evergreen Treatment Services reach Outreach workers to do their jobs more effectively connecting with clients in need.

Outreach providers spend a significant amount of time merely.

Finding the clients.

So, to meet with them to figure out the next steps.

Ambassadors can help outreach workers locate the individual build rapport.

and more.

I can tell you just right now, we are trying to ensure a warm handoff for an individual that has an outsized impact on the neighborhood who is in jail.

And we want to ensure that when they are released, that there's a warm handoff to make sure that they are taken care of and don't flounder in the community.

So this is important work and I love your support.

Thank you, council budget chair.

And what is TikTok?

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Council Member Strauss.

And there was no snark from before that I caught, just an encouragement to keep going.

So thank you so much.

We are going to turn it to Council Member Nelson.

Council Member Nelson, please go ahead.

Thanks, I just went to voice my very, very strong support for this.

It does bring the ballot up with you district partnership.

Those are 2 and it makes sense that this remain within the.

The OED, I mean, yeah, OED's budget and really Mike Stewart is doing all he can, but this is really important funding because I think that we've all heard from businesses in the in the North End that they do need more support and this is a successful program and I don't want to see it.

I just want to make sure that we don't peanut butter a very finite amount of money too far so that it's rendered Any unable to be successful.

That's it.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Council member stress for bringing this forward.

Oh, thank you very much.

Council member Nelson and.

Uh, to reference the meeting that we had last Friday, I do appreciate that there was an initial interest in the downtown Ballard core and the ambassador program again.

I think colleagues, I would like to talk with you about the trade offs potentially here on this item.

We were trying to figure out a way to make equitable and develop investments in Ballard, the CID and South Park for those community safety coordinators.

I think the sponsor of this customer was Strauss.

Thank you.

Particulating the difference between the coordinators versus the ambassadors similar, maybe in terms of community presence, but perhaps different ways of engagement.

So look forward to hearing more about the possibility of this potential amendment versus what's in the underlying package.

I would just note for the community safety coordinators.

The organizations that receive those funds, such as the.

The ballot alliance and the other community partners that receive funding, they have not had an increase in the amount of funds that go to those community safety coordinators in those 3 communities since its inception.

So we were thinking that increasing it by a 50% would be a significant increase, but also shared across the city and look forward to hearing more about the opportunity to either.

engage with the new proposed item there, or if possible, continue to support other neighborhoods through another way.

But look forward to fleshing this out a little bit more.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you chair, it's my understanding that all of the public safety coordinators in CID, you district and ballot are all paid the same amount of money.

And I absolutely also want to would love to increase their pay, but.

It's my understanding that their wage equity was created in the budget that we received from the mayor.

It is important for me that we are able to expand this work.

I'm happy if we're able to do both, increase their pay and have ambassadors, I'm all for it.

But this is really important to me that we have some ambassadors in Ballard.

And I now understand what Council President was trying to tell me.

She was telling me to speak faster.

That's okay.

We're getting through this.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Council member Strauss.

I don't see any additional hands, so we can go to the next 1 now.

Okay, I'm going to pass it to the director to do the next section.

Great office of housing here we come.

Thank you for handy.

The next item 33 is sponsored by council member Lewis and co-sponsored by council members Morales and Strauss.

This would request that the office of housing.

in consultation with low-income housing providers, report on the feasibility of increasing support for development or acquisition of structures of micro-dwelling units.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

There's been a significant amount of conversation recently in the community about not just housing supply, but housing type.

I know that previous councils have made decisions around Um, uh, what the smallest potential size of a residential unit can be.

Um, uh, and in what zones they can be, which is has, in essence, really put a halt on what we might know by the brand name of apartments, new apartments being built.

I do think as we're looking into the future, there are opportunities to acquire some of these existing micro units into our broader profile of affordable housing and also the possibility in a comprehensive plan of once again, broadening and expanding, not just looking at volume of units, but also looking at types units to be something that we factor in.

This is an opportunity to engage with the office of housing on a strategy to increase the amount of micro dwelling units that are within our portfolio as a city.

Some of these units rent for below 1000 dollars a month in rent at market rate.

And this is something that we should be looking into as we face an affordability crunch and I'm looking forward to working with the office of housing on ways to to form a strategy to increase the amount of micro units acquired with public funds.

Thank you so much council member Nelson.

I fully support this because these micro units, there used to be a time when a lot were being built and then there were changes to the building code and other rules that basically brought them to a dead stop.

So this is an option that I have interest to bring back, remove the barriers to allow them to be more feasible to construct.

So thank you very much for bringing this forward and I'd like to be a co-sponsor if that's okay.

Thanks.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you.

Council member Nelson.

Council member Nelson, adding her name to 0H001S.

Okay, let's keep going.

Next item 0H2S is a statement of legislative intent sponsored by council member Peterson, co-sponsored by council members Lewis and Nelson would request that the office of housing collect monthly vacancy reports.

from housing providers for OH funded housing units and provide quarterly vacancy reports to the city council, the public, and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I have much longer remarks prepared, but I'll just keep them short, we're running out of time here.

So colleagues, this is just a statement of legislative intent.

The purpose is to ensure we are maximizing the occupancy of low income housing units that we subsidize during the affordable housing crisis and the declared homelessness emergency.

We can achieve this by gathering data more frequently to increase the transparency of vacancy rates for housing units receiving those tax dollars and spotting any trends that need addressing.

Thank you.

Thank you Councilmember Peterson, Councilmember Strauss.

Sorry, budget chair, if I could before we move on to the next item, I'd like to make a statement.

Absolutely.

Yeah, you are recognized for that.

Are we all wrapped up with this 1?

Yeah, I believe that there's nobody else in the queue.

If you'd like to comment on Councilmember Peterson's statement of legislative intent here, you're welcome to.

It's actually about a couple items before I believe it was number 31 regarding the unified care team reporting.

That's what I want.

Okay, let's hold for just a 2nd.

I'm I'm going to make a comment on this 1 Councilman Peterson and then we'll go back Councilmember Strauss if we can.

Just wanted to flag Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you for bringing this forward.

I know that you've been working on.

This for a while, so this has been a topic that has come up over the last at least a year or maybe 2. I do I want to flag that we have.

Appreciation for the questions that have been asked over that time and also appreciation for the work that office of housing has done to respond to some of the initial questions.

We have already worked with the office of housing during the process of these discussions about how the housing levy renewal legislation can help us address an approach to provide more frequent information about the vacancy data reporting.

I think this issue has been largely addressed to the housing levy resolution.

And the office of housing is taking steps next year to try to get additional information.

I know that there's shared interest in this.

So I wanted to just note that work that's ongoing through the office of housing and through the housing levy legislation that we pass.

And during that conversation, we established that reporting monthly on vacancies could be very challenging for a number of housing providers who are already facing staffing shortages and capacity challenges.

And there's a number of reasons, especially for the low income populations and families why there would be vacancies.

Clearly, housing instability is caused by economic instability.

And as people transition between jobs, they may transition out of housing.

So.

Vacancies are clearly an issue that we know exists, but I think that this is a discussion that needs to be put into context with the items that we've included in the housing levy and the conversations that we've had with providers about the administration and finance plan updates that we know will be coming forth.

In the upcoming weeks and throughout next year, office of housing has provided additional data, excuse me, has hired an additional data analyst to help track and report on the vacancies.

And we know that this work with providers is ongoing to ensure that they address their capacity issues and.

Technical support needs within those housing providers as well to increase their frequency of reporting.

So I just wanted to flag some of the concerns about monthly reporting, but I appreciate that.

There's been an extensive conversation that you've been engaged with as the sponsor of this and daylight some of the other discussions that we've had with and with those housing providers as they work through the upcoming administration and finance plan updates for next year.

Peterson.

Thank you chairman.

Maybe my office can work with yours on some sort of middle ground because I think what we had before was just sort of an, at least annually language.

But what we're finding is once you get.

Vacancy rates 12 months later, they're not that useful to address the trends.

So maybe there's something in between monthly and annual we can work out and.

We know that most of these housing providers are getting low income housing tax credits.

Their funders require monthly rent rolls anyway, so there should be a way of integrating it with their existing processes.

So they're not duplicating.

So happy to work with your office on finding some sort of middle ground on information collection.

That sounds good.

Thank you.

look at that.

Council Member Peterson.

Council Member Strauss, I think we are all wrapped up with that item.

Which item would you like to go back to?

Thank you.

31 regarding quarterly reporting and I actually had to go.

I went on to Seattle Channel and went back to listen to the remarks because I I was a bit surprised to hear what I heard about King County Regional Homelessness Authority taking on our neighborhood, our regional unified care teams.

Just really stating for the record, and the reason I was surprised because I've said this during the budget hearings before, I've said it many times before, everyone's desire is to have the Regional Homelessness Authority take on these regional unified care teams.

They do not have the capacity and that is the reason that they are not taking these teams on.

It is not about a difference of approach in how we are addressing homelessness.

And I see one of my colleagues making kind of a funny face at me, but I'm just gonna state it on the record right here and now.

We have just engaged in an encampment resolution here on Leary Way that sheltered 36 out of 37 people on the by name list.

the only person that was not sheltered was because they could not be found.

That is literally using the exact same parameters that the King County Regional Homelessness Authority uses, which is a census, a needs assessment, a drawdown, and surge of shelter for placement.

And so, It's okay for people to have differences of opinion, but I just have to state on the record, if those previous statements were made, I have to correct the record that from all of my work with the King County Regional Homeless Authority and the geographic neighborhood or unified care teams, is that they are not able to take it on due to capacity, not because of their disagreement with our approach.

I see I might have a colleague that disagrees with me.

Okay, so I will go ahead and allow for a little bit more conversation here.

I thought you wanted to go back for the purpose of adding your name or something.

Council member herbal, please go ahead.

Yeah, just real short.

We'll send you the message from King County that is informing this perspective and I do not.

dispute your experience with the city's approach, but there are encampment removals that are obstruction removals that get no outreach at all.

So there's a whole other sort of universe of encampment removals that aren't receiving this type of attention that you are experiencing with the removal that you just referenced.

Sure, and the neighborhood in the geographic unified care teams are not different.

From.

the unified care team of the past in regards to those obstructions.

Those geographic neighborhood, or I call them the neighborhood-based homelessness response team, but those geographic unified care teams, their prime role is to ensure trash is mitigated and that we are creating a relationship between the city outreach workers and the people who are living there.

What you're referencing about obstructions is not coming from those geographic teams.

Council Member Lewis.

Yeah, I don't think we should belabor this point going back and forth right now.

But 1 thing I will just state is, regardless of the debate on relative approach.

Those discussions are immaterial.

I have not been able to find the letter as this discussion has come back, but I do have correspondence from King County Regional Homeless Authority that made it clear to my office and to others that they did not have the capacity to take this on, given the retrenchment that they're doing under interim director Helen Howell, that regardless of a perceived difference in approach, the authority made clear, at least to my office, that was immaterial.

I'm happy to work to find that letter and make it available to our colleagues.

I would also add, candidly, I have not really seen extensive track records so far of very much outreach being done by the authority in any respect.

Um, and would add that I have found.

That, uh, um, uh, the hero administration has been.

Uh, an effective partner in working with my office to.

Um, bring together outreach and offers of shelter and remediations and locations where.

people could come together and we can get people inside and we could get a public space reclaimed for public use.

But regardless of those discussions, I did check in with the authority on this in advance of our budget process and they were not in a position to accept this money.

I'm happy to try to find that correspondence and make it more broadly available to colleagues as context for this.

Okay, great.

Thank you so much.

Please do.

And I think that related to item 31 there, I would direct folks to the communication we received on October 19th at 154 PM.

It did go to all council members and in response to the questions that were asked in the budget committee on Thursday, October 12th provided responses to the specific questions about capacity from Casey directly.

It says discussions on how to carry out agency 035. Identify that the King County regional homelessness authorities approach to resolutions, such as through the state right away initiative and partnership for 0 were substantially different in planning procedures, resourcing and design and transferring the functions to would have caused substantial disruption to the work of the as such.

The only function proposed to be transferred was the identification and rapid filling of shelter vacancies.

And it goes on to talk about the 812,000 dollars that we had intended to be allocated specifically for those geographic regions.

I think the point in bringing that up was to articulate that that UTC plan, the vision that was outlined in HSD 035 last year, the council adopted, still serves as a good North Star for how to bifurcate service.

between land services and people services.

As the report goes forward, which the council member Lewis on this item, item 31, has the sponsor of the future report to come.

It's just a good reminder of all the hard work that went into that previous council budget action.

Looking forward to having more conversations there.

I don't think that there's any disagreement in how the funding is going to be proposed to be allocated in the current budget in front of us.

There's no change proposed to that.

And the report that we're talking about does not purport changing how the executive plans to use the funding that's transitioning over.

It's just a reminder that a lot of work went into that HSD 035 budget amendment from last year and hope that it continues to serve as a North Star for future work when KCRJ has additional capacity to reconsider this.

Okay, seeing additional hands, thanks for the additional conversation on that.

And I think that that means Councilmember Lewis probably won't be a lot of conversation on that item when we come back to it in mid November.

So thanks for hashing that out and offering additional clarification.

Let's keep going.

Number 35 OIG 1A sponsored by Councilmember Herbold and co-sponsored by Council President Morris and Councilmember Peterson.

Would add 50,000 dollars to the office of inspector general for external independent investigative entities to handle conflict of interest cases when necessary, such as investigations about conduct by the chief of police.

This is balanced by reducing a reserve held in finance general for the Seattle police monitor by 50000 dollars.

That reserve is estimated to have about 275000 dollars of unprogrammed funds in 2024. This action would reduce that by 50000.

Please go ahead, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

As required by the Accountability Ordinance, the OPA Director shall establish in the OPA Manual a protocol for referral to the Office of the Inspector General for classification and appropriate complaint handling.

Any complaints involving OPA staff that cannot be handled within OPA conflict of interest.

On occasion, cases are presented that present a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict for OPA and OIG.

In these cases, OIG consults with SDHR to determine whether or not they can conduct the investigation.

However, SDHR has a narrow scope and jurisdiction.

They may only investigate internal complaints And then only if they meet the requirements of a personnel rule that focuses on EO concerns.

better serve the public interest and support public trust in the accountability system.

Cases that cannot be handled by any of the entities are referred to an external independent legislative entity or investigative entity.

Without the ability to fund these external investigations, the city runs the risk of leaving potentially serious complaints with no means of investigation or resolution.

under Ordinance 126628 when investigations are conducted by a non-City entity.

OIG notifies the Mayor, the President of the City Council, the Chair of the Council's Public Safety Committee, the Executive Director and Co-Chairs of the CPC, the City Attorney, City Director of Human Resources.

Although OIG reports that they refer 8 to 10 cases yearly, In each case costs about $10,000.

We have not yet received any notifications in 2023 so far.

Consequently, the yearly amount requested by the OIG, though it was $150,000, this CBA only provides $50,000 with the expectation that additional funding will be proposed as needed by the executive in a 2024 supplemental.

Thank you.

Great, thanks.

I'm not seeing any additional comments on this.

Let's move to the next 1.

The next 2 are statements of legislative.

Intent directed at the office of planning and community development.

This 1st, 1 OPCD 1 S sponsored by council member Lewis and co sponsored by council members.

Peterson and Morales would request that OPCD draft legislation that would consider removing code restrictions that limit the conversion of existing non residential structure structures to residential and provide incentives for conversion to housing.

Thank you council member Lewis.

Uh, thank you so much madam chair.

I'll be brief on this 1. I, I think this is 1 where there will be significant consensus among colleagues.

But.

Downtown's all over the world right now are in a period of reinvention, given the impacts of cobit, 19, given the restructuring of how we work, given a D, emphasis of office based work.

One of the strategies that is gaining a lot of traction is looking at ways to increase the amount of people who live in a city center.

One of the tactics to implement that strategy is looking at ways to potentially convert underused office space into residential.

We do know that there are a number of buildings and building types that are good candidates for this kind of work.

We do know that it is going to require probably unique considerations.

And how we make those conversions feasible by adopting and changing codes and potentially by providing additional incentives to encourage those kinds of conversions.

This is a action queuing up for.

a plan to have a city strategy to make this a more viable part of this work that we're doing.

Looking forward to getting this report back and moving with purpose to have more of these buildings converted to housing.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Add my name as a sponsor, please.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council member herbal council member herbal adding her name to 0 P.

C. D.

0, 0, 1. s.

All right, I think we can move on.

Number 37 OPCD 2S sponsored by Councilmember Peterson and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Strauss and Herbold requests that the Office of Planning and Community Development and the Department of Construction and Inspections in consultation with the Office of Sustainability and Environment Develop a plan to monitor and evaluate the impacts of the recently adopted city street regulations for trees on private property to ensure that the regulations support city goals related to tree canopy cover environmental justice and climate resilience.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

This is a team effort.

I want to thank the Urban Forestry Commission for sending to us their letter on October 12 with ideas for the budget.

I want to thank the budget chair for incorporating a couple of those concepts into her balancing package.

This would add another item.

I want to thank Councilor Strauss, Councilor Herbold for co-sponsoring this.

Basically, it's seeking a process for monitoring and enforcing the tree protection regulations, especially the new ordinance that was adopted in May.

The UFC requested $60,000 for this, Consulting further with central staff and then circling back with UFC, we decided we could get this accomplished with a statement of legislative intent instead.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Council member Peterson and thanks for your partnership on this effort.

I don't see.

Anyone else with their hand raised right now.

I appreciate it.

Let's keep going.

The next item 38 serves 1 s a is a statement alone legislative intent sponsored by council member Peterson and co-sponsored by Council President Morris and council member Nelson would request that the Seattle City employees retirement system update.

A report they provided in response to a 2021 statement of legislative intent regarding sources and uses of city retirement funds and performance of the serves to plan.

And I'll just note that there are details from that previous slide, and we will be in consultation with the sponsor for the fully drafted statement of legislative intent.

There will be much more detail in what is being requested here.

Thank you so much council member Peterson.

Thank you, chairman, and colleagues.

This was a report we got, or we received already based on a previous statement of legislative intent.

So it's just.

A renewed request to have them update that the good news is the templates already created for how they would present the information.

It will be a valuable to city council to city budget office to the surf board.

It's just another way of presenting the information that's user friendly.

And so we ask that this that we have them update this information.

Thank you.

Thank you very much council member.

Peterson, can I just do a double check here?

Is this regarding the allocation of the funding that goes to.

Respond to the board approved amounts, or is this a separate 1?

No, this is a, this is a separate 1. this was just showing the sources and uses of the funds and the performance of the serves 2, which is the newer version for newer employees.

And it's just updating what they had already provided to us.

Okay, thanks so much.

I don't see any additional questions on this 1. let's keep going.

Item 39 SDCI 804S is a statement of legislative intent sponsored by Councilmember Peterson and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Herbold and Morales.

This would request that the Department of Construction and Inspections, in consultation with the Office of Planning and Community Development and the Office of Housing, develop a reporting requirement to collect data on rental rates and other information about rental units, such as the size of a unit, per housing subject that is subject to the city's rental registration and inspection ordinance.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I think central staff explained it really well.

I don't need to add anything.

It's just a sly.

Excellent.

Okay, sounds good.

We're all getting tired.

All right, let's keep going.

Item 40, SDHR 1S, sponsored by Councilmember Morales, co-sponsored by Chair Mosqueda and Councilmember Herbold is a statement of legislative intent that would require the Department of Human Resources examine and report on how the city could implement a four-day workweek for most civil service employees similar to other jurisdictions to address gender and racial pay gap issues and improve work-life balance.

Thank you, Councilmember Morales.

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks so much, Ali.

Thank you to the Chair and Council Member Herbold for co-sponsoring.

We all recall the impacts, still experiencing the impacts of COVID.

The conversation really started then about health and well-being of workers.

And as a result, the state of the workplace has really been a part of global conversation.

Just to give a quick snapshot of conversations about four-day workweeks, which exist in 21 countries, including 30 businesses here in the U.S.

For example, State Senator Joe Wynn in 2020 introduced legislation that would mandate and incentivize four-day workweek.

King County already allows for a 35-hour workweek for some employees.

Most recently, San Juan County moved to a four-day workweek for most of their employees.

Similarly, our city employees are experiencing issues with job vacancies, with burnout, and retirements.

This slide is really intended as a first step in assessing for the city how we might really Transition into better retention strategies for our workers and really be able to attract and respond to future workforce needs.

So.

I would appreciate your support.

Thank you very much.

Excellent council member.

Thank you for your work on this excited to see these innovative ideas in San Juan county.

Thanks for bringing this forward here.

Let's keep going.

On this Friday afternoon, can I sign my name on to that 1?

Okay, item number 41, S.1A, sponsored by Councilmember Strauss, co-sponsored by Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Lewis.

would add $1 million from the Seattle Transportation Benefit District Fund in the Department of Transportation to contract with the King County Metro for transit ambassadors on Metro buses and then propose a proviso.

And specifically, I understand Council Member Strauss' intent is to make sure this funding provides people on buses.

And this is balanced by using a million dollars from the Seattle transit transit measure sales tax revenue from the October 2020 through 2023 revenue forecast update and unrestricted fund balance in that fund.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda and Deputy Director Panucci.

Simply put, everyone has been on a bus with a bottle rolling around the back or somebody playing music too loud and the bus driver has to play the pre-recorded message of, please turn down your music, or something more critical that needs to be addressed.

Ambassadors riding the bus would allow the operator to keep their eyes on the road, the bus moving forward, and to have behaviors that we don't want to have on transit addressed by a person that can address them well.

This amendment would do just that and I hope to earn everyone's support.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Councilmember.

Thanks for bringing this forward.

Councilmember Lewis.

Uh, thank you so much chairman skate, uh, appreciate the ability to work with the Strauss office on this and appreciate council member stresses leadership.

Raised a similar.

Ideas and issue identification and appreciate this vehicle that.

Councilmember Strauss has brought together.

Obviously a really big challenge that we're dealing with right now.

Hopefully this is a resource that can start making progress on this and looking forward to helping advance this through our budget process.

Excellent.

Councilmember Nelson.

Please remind me, did the October 2023 revenue forecast update predict, or did it say that there's more money than we thought there would be?

And so there is a surplus and so this would be taken from that.

Or is anything not going to be paid for if this money goes elsewhere?

Excellent question.

Council member, or Ali Panucci, please go ahead.

Thank you for the question, Council member Nelson.

Yes, the forecast did provide an increase in the specific revenue stream and because it is It's pretty restricted on what this funding can be used for related to transit uses.

It couldn't be used to help address some of the other transportation revenue issues that came through in that forecast.

So there is available fund balance as well as that increased revenue.

In part, there's available fund balance because King County has had limited ability to increase the amount of Seattle's purchased service.

And so there are funds available to deploy for this purpose as well as to I think cover items proposed in item number 48. Okay thank you.

Good question and a good reminder of how the gap that we had to close due to the revenue forecast being down for many of the transportation related items.

So glad that we were able to close that gap and thank you Council Member Strauss for bringing this forward.

All right let's keep going.

Item number 42 S.2S is a statement of legislative intent sponsored by Council Member Strauss, co-sponsored by Council President Moraes and Council Member Peterson, would request that the Department of Transportation provide initial cost estimates for alternatives to traditional sidewalks in specified locations.

And we are working with the chair to refine this.

And the next, the final fully drafted version will provide more details on locations and the sponsor may have more details.

All right.

That's great.

Thank you.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Deputy Director Panucci.

This builds off of the statement of legislative intent report that we received this year regarding alternatives to fully built out sidewalks so that we can get more safe places to walk throughout the city.

I'm proposing here that we identify three to 10 specific locations that were identified in the 2017 pedestrian master plan so that each of those locations can have in today's costs, in 2023 dollars, what it would cost for each of the different options presented in this last year's slide.

Councilmember Morales, Council President Juarez, Councilmember Herbold, central staff will be reaching out to you to identify some locations that you believe could or would be important to study because the goal here is to build more safe places to walk for the fewest dollars possible.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Council Member Nelson.

Are these swales?

Is that what we're talking about when we're talking about alternative sidewalks?

In the interest of time, Council Member Nelson, I will sidebar with you.

There's a lot of different options.

I'll forward you over that slide.

Thanks.

Now we have a new word for our bingo for the future.

I want to know how many times we're going to say swales next time, because I want to know all about them.

So share it with all of us.

Please come from Strauss.

Thank you for bringing this forward and look forward to learning more as well.

Number 43. We are so close, everyone.

Ten to go.

Number 43. SDOT 3S is a statement of legislative intent sponsored by Council Member Strauss, joined by Council Members Lewis and Council President Juarez.

This would request that the Department of Transportation provide a report that covers three, four, four things.

Identify specific projects in the Ballard-Interbay Regional Transportation System report that support state and regional transportation needs.

Identify funding sources for the design of the Ballard and Magnolia Bridges replacement projects and make those projects eligible for federal funding.

Characterizes the needs and levels of services required for port operations and identify The NSF requirements to expand the Dravis street bridge and apologies right now that initialism is escaping me.

That's okay.

Council member Strauss.

Thank you.

I'll be brief.

The Ballard Interbay Regional Transportation System, BERT, study was commissioned by the 2019 Washington State Legislature and completed by SDOT in 2020. The intent is to improve travel for people and goods in this very narrow corridor with competing uses and increased growth.

$25 million of state funding was provided for the BERT corridor projects.

This request is for SDOT to provide a report that identifies specific projects that support state and regional transportation needs, identify funding sources, put another way, set us up to be able to receive federal funding for the Ballard and Magnolia bridges, both are bridges within the corridor, understand the levels of service required for neighboring jurisdictions within this corridor, and understand what is going to be needed to expand the Dravis Street Bridge.

Colleagues, you might notice that I also had a slide requesting SDOT provide a report on implementing the BERT system improvements last year.

I am requesting this slide in hopes that it answers questions that weren't generated in last year's report.

And unfortunately, I can't be certain because the 2023 BERT slide, which was due to Council on July 1st, stated in committee on the record that it would be, has 118 days later not been delivered to Council.

Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you for that reminder too.

I thought it was a good point.

Thank you for the reminder of that and important again to have a continuity.

So thank you for making sure that that information gets back to us.

I'm glad because we're making the same noise.

It's cultural.

That's a compliment to you, Council Member Strauss, raising good points.

Number 44, please.

Number 44 S.4S sponsored by Council Member Morales and co-sponsored by Chair Mosqueda and Council Member Herbold is a statement of legislative intent requesting that the Department of Transportation Inventory and report on low income housing, human service providers, child care providers and other facilities serving vulnerable community members impacted by sound transit, West Seattle, Ballard, link extension alternatives in the Chinatown International District and North Delridge neighborhoods.

The goal is for this inventory to be done in consultation with the Office of Planning and Community Development and other city departments that also contract for those services to try to understand how they might be impacted by that link extension and whether they could be maintained through the light rail construction process and continue to serve their communities after construction.

Excellent.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

Um, so I think the original language or intent was to try to do this for sound transit, but of course, that's not in our jurisdiction.

And so this is really coming from some conversations I know many of us have had with our with our constituents about how their businesses and services that are provided to community members will be impacted by the light rail.

So for example, small businesses in the CID, childcare center in West Seattle.

And so what we are trying to do is make sure that there is at least an inventory of businesses and services that are at risk so that we can be sure that we are also subsequently making sure that there is a mitigation strategy for how community members will be how they won't be made whole.

And so that is the intent behind this and we hope to work with SDOT and subsequently with Sound Transit once these lists are available so that we can ensure that our neighbors don't have their services disrupted as these very important pieces of infrastructure are going in.

Very well said, thank you for your leadership on this, and I appreciate that.

This also aligns with the resolution, the interest that this council expressed through its resolution earlier this year.

I'm forgetting the number, but thank you for leading on this council member Morales.

All right, let's keep going.

Number 45S.5S.

is a statement of legislative intent sponsored by Council Member Lewis, co-sponsored by Council Members Morales and Strauss, would request that the Department of Transportation proceed with the surplus and sale of property at 900 Royce Street and state the Council's intent to allocate the net proceeds from that sale to phase two of the Thomas Street redesign and traffic calming on South Henderson Street.

Excellent.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much, Chair Mosqueda, and thanks to Council Members Morales and Strauss for this co-sponsorship, and to Council Member Bagshaw, my predecessor, for her advocacy of the Thomas Street redesign.

The Council has tried a number of different strategies over the years to elevate getting this really critical green street over the finish line.

This is the latest effort from my office.

Through efforts actually to try to find properties that would be suitable for housing or tiny house villages, my office found a parcel owned by SDOT in South Lake Union and made inquiries to the department.

This is a parcel that Estad has wanted to sell for many years there was actually previous legislation sponsored by Michael Brian to sell this parcel.

Its uses are limited.

It was acquired with gas tax money that does limit.

are options as to what can be done with a specific parcel.

It has to be sold for transportation related purposes that cannot be used with the same level of flexibility as parcels that aren't so encumbered and weren't acquired with gas tax money, which is the origin of this property.

The department, as I understand it, would like to sell this property.

Myself and my co-sponsors would like to support their efforts to sell this property and have the transportation proceeds go towards supporting these really critical safety and bike and ped projects.

And this is just instruction to SDOT of council policy of what we would like to see the department do and work with us to effectuate to accomplish this purpose.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Would not be a budget season without reference to Thomas Street, right?

So thank you for your ongoing advocacy and your predecessor as well.

Let's continue.

Number 46 S.101A sponsored by Council Member Peterson, co-sponsored by Council Member Morales and Council Member Nelson would add $3 million to the Department of Transportation, $1.6 million of that for bridge maintenance safety and $1.4 million to implement doubling the school zone traffic safety camera program.

This would replace SERS 901A that was presented in the chair's balancing package that would apply, and this replacement would apply the SERS actuarially derived rate of 15.17% to calculate the city's 2024 contribution to the retirement fund, rather than using the SERS board recommended rate that was assumed in the chair's balancing package.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Peterson, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

Colleagues, thank you for your ongoing support of transportation programs, which includes maintaining the safety of our bridges and doing more to keep students safe walking to and from school.

This amendment would meet the bare minimum of the city auditor's recommendations for bridge safety maintenance.

And this amendment reiterates council's direction to double the school zone traffic safety camera program.

As we know from the disturbing bridge audit we obtained in 2020, our city auditor recommends investing a range of between 34 million to 102 million annually for maintenance of Seattle's aging bridges.

That excludes seismic and replacement.

And that comprises five maintenance items in the budget.

So this amendment tries to lift us up by 1.6 million to get us to that bare minimum of 34 million.

And last year, as you know, the council adopted or authorized funding to double the school zone traffic safety enforcement cameras, but that did not get done.

So this amendment makes sure that it would get done in 2024. And then as central staff noted, it would be done by going to what the actuarial expert states is or calculates is necessary to have 100% sustainable retirement fund, but it's actually a lower rate, and that's what generates the funds for this amendment.

And we can see who can say actuarially 10 times fast.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Kerbal.

you um this is another one that I got in touch with the Peterson office before the deadline but unfortunately after they'd already collected their maximum number of sponsors so I would like to add my name please thank okay thank you councilmember Herbold councilmember Herbold adding her name to s dot 101 number 46

Um, thank you council members council member Peterson.

I was eagerly wanting to chat about this 1. I think that maybe I'd love to talk a little bit more with you.

Definitely interested in where the investments are going just wearing my service board hat for a 2nd as the board president of Seattle City employees retirement system.

I want to note that this is lower than the board approved amount and to be fair to you.

And in the analysis that we received from central staff, it is, as you said, the bare minimum of what the actuary said is necessary to actually make the investment.

So it comports with what the actuary range would be.

It stays at that bottom range.

The service board did go with a slightly higher rate.

Actually, a higher rate than this was included in the mayor's proposed budget.

and we reduced it to what the CSRS board had approved.

I did want to reach out to the CSRS staff members and leadership.

The executive director of the CSRS system said the CSRS board recommended keeping the city's contribution rate at 15.82 percent in anticipation that due to losses, the portfolio experience in 2022, the city's required contribution weight will increase next year as the losses are recognized.

If the city's contribution rate are lowered to the minimum contribution rate as proposed here, the actuarially required contribution as part of this year's budget process, then there will be concern that this will make the anticipated contribution rate increase in next year's budget process even larger.

I do recognize that this is a legal option to pursue, but I think it's just a policy question for us on whether or not we want to reduce it by the suggested amount here.

Obviously, in good times, we all try to put more money into our savings account and recognize that there's many investments that are needed.

Similarly, we're doing a little bit less here than what was proposed in the mayor's budget.

In my chair's balancing package, we included what was the Um, search board recommendation, and then the policy question in front of us would just be if we wanted to reduce that to what the actuary said was the sort of minimum contribution contribution needed.

No question in my mind, the investments are needed that you've articulated those.

So, look forward to chatting with you and perhaps we can chat more with the service board and and staff leadership about the impact here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Peterson, you're up next for the next two, huh?

Number 47, please.

Number 47, S.102A, sponsored by Councilmember Peterson, co-sponsored by Councilmembers Strauss and Lewis, would add $1.5 million MOVE Seattle Levy Fund to the Department of Transportation for the 45th Street Bridge I-5 Crossing Improvements CIP Project.

This is balanced using unrestricted fund balance in the MOVE Seattle Levy Fund.

Thank you very much customer Peterson, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

Colleagues, as you know very well, this is a Move Seattle and Vision Zero safety project that connects people to the new U District light rail station to expand usage of our growing transit system in the face of climate change.

This project was promised to voters in 2015 as part of the Move Seattle property tax levy and retained as part of the 2018 work plan that was updated and reset expectations for projects to be delivered.

Community groups and advocacy groups pointed out in 2021 that SDOT had not made progress on this, even though the light rail station was on the verge of opening.

In November 2021, the council kickstarted this Vision Zero project by authorizing its engineering and design.

In November 2022, the council authorized funding to complete the project by increasing by $10 a vehicle license fee.

Due to an administrative oversight, the collection of that revenue source was temporarily delayed.

This budget action before us today is essentially a proviso of newly identified unrestricted dollars, which would ensure that S dot completes the project already approved twice by the city council.

While we were, today we actually are receiving a petition signed by over 600 people in North Seattle.

I'll forward that to you.

But there is still strong support for this project in the community that links communities.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson for bringing this up.

I will also just add if we had a private development lid over I-5 between 45th and 50th, it would be 14 acres.

A similar project in Washington, D.C.

of seven acres creates $40 million per year in property tax for the city of Washington, D.C. I love this plan.

Councilmember Peterson, let's do it and let's build that lid.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thanks, Councilmember Strauss.

All right, let's go to the next one.

Number 48, S.103A, sponsored by Councilmember Peterson, co-sponsored by Councilmember Morales and Councilmember Lewis, would add $1.4 million from the Seattle Transit Benefit District Fund to the Department of Transportation.

$1 million of this ad would be for the Accessible Mount Baker Implementation CIP and $400,000 would be for the STBD transit improvement CIP project.

This will require a budget legislation to increase the allowable spending on capital projects from this revenue source.

And this is the other item that is balanced using what the 1.4, using 1.4 million of Seattle transit measure sales tax revenue from the October forecast update and unrestricted fund balance.

Excellent, Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair.

Colleagues, this amendment would specify our intent to invest, how to invest the higher than expected revenue from the sales tax that funds the Seattle Transit measure.

We wanted to put this toward capital for budget sustainability to have a one-time Um, you know, we had requested for a while to get s.spend plan for the Seattle transit measure, but we didn't get it until a couple weeks ago.

And there are several vague line items in that spend plan.

But the purpose of this amendment is not to upend s.spend plan, but rather to the extra revenue to a one-time source.

So in South Seattle, we know that we're experiencing the highest level of fatalities and injuries.

This project that we're proposing here, the Accessible Amount of Bank Project, and Council Member Morales Hopefully she'll be interested in speaking to this as well.

But I've learned a lot about this project.

We presented it to the Transit Advisory Board as well to remind them of this project.

It improves safe access to the Mount Baker Light Rail Station, a very dangerous intersection of Rainier Avenue and MLK Way.

So it does double duty by encouraging transit ridership and advancing Vision Zero goals.

And as we know, the Seattle Transit Measure requires that at least 50% of all funds be spent on transit service hours.

And this amendment still enables that paramount goal to be exceeded, especially while there's a bus driver shortage.

Okay, thank you.

Sorry about that.

Council Member Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you very much, Councilmember Peterson and your staff for coming to my office with this idea.

I'm excited to, you know, have that willingness to work on improving the conditions in South End.

We Well, I've said more than once that, you know, District 2 has almost 60% of traffic fatalities in the city.

Five people have been hit just in the last month or two, and two people have been killed.

And so I'm always looking for opportunity to partner with my colleagues to make sure that we are improving safety on the streets of District 2. And this funding would really help to restart a portion of the accessible Mount Baker project that was cut due to budget constraints.

This has been studied back in 2013 and would repurpose a lane on Mount Baker Boulevard in front of Franklin High School.

in front of the football field and the gym to be a safe space for young people to walk and get between school and the Mount Baker Station, as Council Member Peterson said.

It would also effectively fill a gap in the linear park that's running from Chistie Boulevard all the way through the Mount Baker Park.

So it would bring safety to students and teachers and people who rely on transit or who can't drive.

and would also provide some support for folks who are just trying to navigate through and are really looking for some road improvements in the neighborhood.

If you've ever been through there after school, the students at Franklin High School don't have bus service.

They walk a lot around there and it's a very busy intersection.

So appreciate Council Member Peterson's support here.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Both of you.

All right, let's move on to number 49 folks.

We're so close.

We have.

5 more, thank you for sticking with me and appreciate that.

We're going to end before 530.

Scott 6A sponsored by Councilmember Strauss, co-sponsored by Councilmember Lewis and Council President Juarez, would add $500,000 of general fund to the Department of Transportation for Ballard Avenue, Cafe Street, and Ballard Brewery District Improvements and add a proviso.

This relies on resources that were recently identified in the proposed budget errata, which are technical corrections that the City Budget Office and Executive Departments transmit after the budget is transmitted in late September.

This would reduce $500,000 from the School Safety, Traffic, and Pedestrian Improvement Fund that was backfilled to address the revenue gap in the chair's balancing package reflect, like I said, from the technical correction identified in the errata.

If not used for this purpose, as we discussed last, week as part of the chair's balancing package.

This was part of the ongoing conversation to identify alternative options for addressing those revenue gaps.

Excellent.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Deputy Director Panucci.

And yes, I am a bit agnostic on the fund source for this.

I don't want to take away from school safety projects.

And I have been asking SDOT to include this within their budget for a couple years.

and yet colleagues, it has been you that have kept this project alive.

What this is today, this is a funding request to make the final changes and incorporate this work into Streets Illustrated so that it can be easily applied to neighborhoods across Seattle, whether it's in Columbia City, whether it's in West Seattle, whether it's downtown, Lake City or the University District, Cafe Streets are a unique way to encourage, to use our right of ways for business and people.

And Streets Illustrated is the format in which we do that.

the pilot project that is on Ballard Avenue right now.

Literally today they are putting in the changes that we started working on in January of this year.

In previous phases we added four-way stops, curb bulbs, updated striping.

We have spent months gathering feedback and input from community members, local businesses to inform the work and we are right now just waiting We're finalizing this work, and then we're gonna get it added into Streets Illustrated.

As well, this work, if there is underspend, money in this line item could be used for pedestrian safety improvements between Ballard Avenue and the Brewery District, which is in its phase one of creating safer pedestrian experience.

As you might know, there are derelict rail lines along 14th, and the brewery district is cut off by four major traffic streets, 15th Avenue Northwest, Market Street, Leary Avenue, and 8th Avenue Northwest.

So this funding would increase pedestrian safety and it would get a street cafe streetscape added to Streets Illustrated so that you too could have a street cafe in your neighborhood.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss, Council Member Morales.

Old hand, sorry old hand.

No problem.

Thank you.

Council member Strauss.

I appreciate the interest in increasing the funding that's going into this area of our city and.

And have tried to work over the past few years on.

Uh, really directing funding towards the activation of the Ballard Avenue street cafe concept and the district that you brought forward excited that those dollars year over year continue to be to add to the footprint of the vision.

I know it's not fully there.

And so building blocks for sure.

I do want to flag that.

I'm going to continue to look at this item a little bit more though.

I think that with the revenue forecast being down.

By about 9 and a half Million dollars for transportation, transportation, related sources.

We worked really hard to make sure to close that gap.

Thanks to central staff for realigning some of the existing transportation revenue options to help close that gap.

Thanks to CBO for helping.

to try to think through some initial ways as well to close that.

But really, central staff came through with an evaluation that showed us that there were some calculations that were being folded in twice.

So we had to reduce that $9.4 million revenue gap.

We closed it in part by using $3 million from general fund, in part with some other transportation-related revenue.

And then there was just $775,000.

And at the last minute, we decided we were going to use the contribution from the emergency reserves to make sure that there was No reduction to transportation related services and, you know, that we didn't have vision 0 versus bridge folks coming out.

That would be heartbreaking to hear those camps again, because it's all important.

So, I just bring that up as a reminder that I did pull 775 from the proposed emergency reserve amount.

And my intent and my commitment to the city budgets office was that we would do everything we could to first fill that.

So, knowing that this funding was available only yesterday, my intent would be to try to ensure that that that promise of filling the 775,000 from the emergency reserves is held that I hold to that.

And ideally, I would use this funding to backfill those emergency reserves that we reduce, but.

I'm happy to continue to talk with you more.

Hopefully, we can find a solution that allows for investments to move forward, but that the emergency reserves for the long-term stability of the city's financing get replenished first.

Central staff, I think I'm going to just move forward on that, but if folks have questions about the alignment there, they can chat with you.

Yeah, going back to Council Member Strauss.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

In a $6 billion budget, I'm hoping that we can find $500,000 because I agree with everything you just said.

Great.

Well, let's then come back to this.

I would also ask central staff to remind us how much has gone into the investments in the Ballard Avenue Street Cafe and the Brewery District over the last few years.

That might be helpful as well to have the historical context.

We can do that going forward.

For the purposes of time, let's go ahead and go to item number 50 out of 53, so close.

Estat 202A, sponsored by Council Member Strauss, co-sponsored by Council President Juarez and Council Member Peterson, would impose a proviso on $150,000 in the Department of Transportation for construction of a sidewalk using alternative construction methods on the south side of North 87th Street from 1st Avenue Northwest to Pelham Avenue North.

This proviso would restrict $150,000 of the $654,000 that is budgeted in the neighborhood traffic control CIP project in the 2024 proposed budget adjustments.

Excellent.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Deputy Director Panucci.

This is building off of that sidewalk slide from last year and using a cost-effective means to create a sidewalk.

And this is in a neighborhood that does not have sidewalk connectivity.

This is a rare example of sidewalk connectivity from 3rd Avenue Northwest to Greenwood Avenue Northwest, except for this one block.

And I do know that there are some changes coming to the street and this amendment would be only utilized in concert with everything that's changing.

So we can't become a 15-minute city without a well-connected, safe place to walk.

And in a neighborhood that does not have safe places to walk, this is the missing link for the safe place to walk.

Thank you, Council Chair Mosqueda.

Excellent, thank you.

I don't see any additional hands on this.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Number 51.

Thank you.

I'm going to hand it over to our Director, Director Handy to finish this out for the final three items.

Great.

SPD 1A is sponsored by Council Member Herbold, co-sponsored by Council Members Miskada and Peterson.

It would add $222,000 to the Seattle Police Department for a deputy director position at the Office of Police Accountability.

This is a filled position that is currently funded using salary savings from other positions that now need to be filled.

This is balanced by a reduction of the same amount from the reserves for the Seattle Police Monitor.

That reserve is estimated to have 275,000 of unprogrammed funds in 24. of which this would reduce by $222,000.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Garbold.

Thank you.

Handi did a good job of laying out both the need and the fund source.

I don't have a whole lot to add other than the fact that the accountability ordinance requires the OPA to have a deputy director.

So I hope I can get folks support.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Council members, I'm not seeing additional hands on this.

Let's go to number 52.

SPD 200A is sponsored by Councilmember Peterson and it is co-sponsored by Councilmembers Herbold and Juarez.

This would provide $250,000 in the police department for a contract with Trulio to allow for systemic and department-wide analysis of body camera audio that improves officer health and community interactions.

The department has held a contract with Trulio in the past.

this CBA would request that they initiate work on that contract immediately so that it can begin execution in 2014, and the proviso is for funding in 2014-2024.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda, and thank you, Director Handy, for explaining that.

We think that SPD should re-institute that contract as soon as possible.

So this proviso will encourage them to do that.

And that's the various reasons to do it.

I mean, we can have a long discussion about it, but I think it's, there's consensus that SPD should be re-instituting this contract that they canceled back in February.

Council Member Scanlon, did you want more information about that or, okay, okay, thank you.

No, thank you look forward to chatting a little bit more.

It's still very interested in knowing what happened with that cancellation.

So, thank you.

I may have some questions council members.

I can follow up with you and central stuff as well.

All right, council members.

We're on the last item.

Item 53 is SPR-201A.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Strauss and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Lewis and Peterson.

This would proviso $30,000 in the Parks Department for rejuvenating Pea Patch CIP project listed here.

that would fund a permanent fence around Griggs Garden Pea Patch in Northwest Seattle.

This proviso restricts $30,000 in the Parks Department.

We're still determining sort of the best place within the Parks Department that this could come from.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you, Council Budget Chair Mosqueda.

This is the last item on today's agenda.

Here we go.

This is incredibly modest one-time funding to install a permanent fence at Gregg's Garden Pea Patch to meet the needs of gardeners and end an ongoing rental cost to the city.

Greg's Garden, it might be the only P patch in an industrial zone.

And if it's not the only, it is one of few.

And it is actually on a King County parcel that there's an adjacent substation for King County Metro.

Gardeners have advocated for a fence for the Peapatch for many years.

And when there was the land transfer conversation with King County, I actually proposed that they had to install a fence as part of that land transfer, but the land transfer was halted.

In April, 2022, Seattle Parks and Recreation installed a temporary fence around the perimeter of Greg's Garden Peapatch.

The gardeners have been very excited.

It's been very well received.

It is a temporary fence.

It doesn't have a very good gate.

And in September 23, Department of Neighborhoods agreed to take over the monthly billing for the temporary fence.

However, it is not sustainable to keep renting the fence.

The monthly charge is $317.52.

So this amendment will pay for itself in less than eight years.

It's a good amendment.

It keeps pea patches in an industrial zone fenced off and the gardeners really want it.

I hope to earn your support.

Awesome.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Nelson.

I'll add my name as a co-sponsor.

Okay, great.

Council Member Nelson, adding her name to the last.

Item on our list here number 53 SPR 201. Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

This is just an item for the good of the order since we're so far over.

I will be short.

I'm here at my Ballard office at the Ballard Library, and we've got Health One out here helping to mitigate a crisis on the streets.

We've got our FAS staff helping people at the service center every day, and we've got the police out here helping everyone resolve the situation.

I just want to take that moment.

We had The individual from HealthONE testify at our budget hearing earlier this week, and she's out here on the streets helping the people that we are asking her to serve.

And I just want to raise up the good work of HealthONE, the Seattle police officers that are here, and the people in the service center from FAS.

Thank you, budget chair.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for the shout out for the HealthONE members.

And I want to give all of you a shout out.

Thank you for sticking with us.

It is 529. Thanks for getting us all the way through 53 items.

I think it's very important to hear additional context.

I know for one, I learned a lot more about some of the proposals that council members put forward in this list of possible amendments to the balancing package.

And I want to thank you for your earlier work that you did with our office and central staff.

to bring forward the amendments that we did include in the balancing package.

So it is an iterative process, building blocks being put together here, and we will again talk about this on November 13th.

I want to remind folks on November 13th that is a briefing that we will have on all of the amendments.

Every revised amendment will be published the week prior, so you will have plenty of time to take a look at the proposed amendments in full detail.

November 13th, we will walk through all of those amendments and then we will have a public hearing in the evening.

We start right at 10 a.m.

with business, no public comment because we take public comment at 5 p.m.

that day to get people's feedback.

The next thing on the 14th of November, we will then start voting on each one of the amendments.

That's our chance to make some of these discussions and points that we've heard today and ideally get through all of the amendments on November 14th.

And that leaves us with November 15 to really get into budget related legislation that impacts the budget, but not necessarily the 2024 budget.

And that will be a briefing that day within the opportunity to come back on November 30th for budget related legislation that has no fiscal impact on calendar year 2024. So the next meeting that we have, just as a summary, is November 13th.

You will see all of the finalized amendments that we've discussed today published the week before, and we will have a public hearing again that Monday at 5 p.m.

Public comment sign-up sheet goes live at 3 p.m.

for online, and people can start queuing up here in person if they desire.

I will be here in person to receive people, but again, encourage remote participation given the ongoing a pandemic and communicable diseases.

I really appreciate all of the work that you've put into this colleagues and for getting us through this.

Thank you Council Member Strauss for sharing your good of the order.

Are there any other good of the orders?

Okay, excuse me, Director Handy.

I just want to say thank you for the time today.

Your central staff team will be fully offline this weekend.

I would like to make that as a sort of a public announcement.

And we will be really at the ready on Monday to refine these proposals with you through next week.

So thanks.

And I also want to give a special shout out to Patty Wigrin, who has been behind the scenes this entire afternoon keeping us on track.

So thanks to my whole team, and I hope you all enjoy the weekend.

Thank you and thanks to the clerks and to our tech team comms and Seattle channel.

Have a great weekend without interruption from each other and we will see you on November 13th hearing no further business.

Today's select budget committee meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.