Good morning.
Thank you for being here this great morning.
On November 18th, we're here for our regularly scheduled council briefing.
And I'll start off by saying that we are joined by Council Members Bagshaw, Juarez, Herbold, and O'Brien.
And if there's no objection, the minutes of the November, and Council Member Pacheco, if there's no objection, the minutes of the November 12th, 2019 meeting will be approved.
Hearing no objection, those minutes are approved.
We do have an executive session after a preview of today's full council actions.
Let me just start off by saying from the full council agenda, I'll speak to two items this afternoon at two o'clock.
We've discussed this at our last committee meeting, which are the legislation relative to the waterfront lid.
So Council Bill 119697 will amend the code and that will govern the procedures for conducting the final assessments.
what we call the final assessment role hearing.
And then the resolution 31915 that accompanies that will provide the official notice of the public hearing on the final assessment role for the waterfront LID.
Excuse me, we did have a little confusion on what kind of testimony we will hear.
As many of you know, this is a quasi-judicial matter.
And so we will be able to take testimony at two o'clock on the disclosures that were made or any of the process issues, but we are prohibited from taking testimony on the final assessments.
So if a person comes in and talks about their assessments, but there could be procedural issues or other issues that are fair to talk about and appropriate to talk about.
I will ask all of you to speak to it if you'd like during our comments on the legislation as we do other pieces of legislation, but just sort of know that all that becomes part of the official record of the legislation.
Okay, so we'll do that this afternoon at two o'clock.
Okay, and I have council members Sawant and Gonzalez are excused from today's briefing and meeting.
Let's go around the table and talk about anything else we have during our budget process.
Council Member Beckshaw.
Thank you very much.
So tomorrow is our big day on budget items and we will be voting on a consent package.
I also just want everyone to know that there is a budget staff meeting at 1 o'clock today in 370. for all of the members of your staff if you will remind them to go today because they'll get the process and procedures.
There will be ample opportunity for you to talk today if there's anything else that you need me to know, any items that you intend to add.
And tomorrow, just so you know what's going to happen is Council Central staff will be sitting at this table.
They're going to go through all 100 and I believe the number is 72, 172 items.
And you will have an opportunity to pull some of these items to remove them ahead of time if you want further conversation.
But if you want to get out of budget discussions before midnight tomorrow night, I recommend that if you don't need to remove the item and you want to proceed with it on the consent agenda, we can move through everything pretty quickly.
But I do want to emphasize that you will have an opportunity, if I have forgotten anything, if there's something that you want to speak to fervently, there are opportunities today and tomorrow to be able to address those.
to the extent that we can have a consent agenda tomorrow that we can move through and vote on, that will be the final package that we will have our formal vote on a week from today.
So, again, thanks to all of you for being so generous and thoughtful and working with me to come up with the package that actually balances.
Thank you, Council Member Bekshaw.
Council Member Juarez.
Good morning.
First of all, thank you, Council President, for your comments about what we're going to be talking and voting on this afternoon.
I'm just going to add a few to what you shared.
So we know we're going to take action on two pieces of legislation related to the Waterfront Local Improvement Districts.
Those would be items three and four of the agenda.
And as the Council President stated, Resolution 31915 would establish February 4th, 2020 as the date of the public hearing for the final assessment role.
And Council Bill 119697 would provide more flexibility to the City Clerk and the Hearing Examiner to fulfill their responsibilities dealing with the final assessment role for the Local Improvement District, the LID.
Again, Council Member President Harrell and Council Staff's Eric McConaughey, thank you very much for coordinating us to this next phase.
Eric wrote a great memo dated November 8th that addresses the resolution and the Council Bill.
So if you hadn't had a chance, that will answer a lot of your questions.
Very straightforward.
It just states what the resolution and the ordinance would do.
So for the Seattle Park District Board, once the City Council meeting concludes this afternoon, I will convene our annual Park District Board meeting.
The board convenes every November to establish the Metropolitan Park District budget.
Today's agenda includes a presentation on a 2019 district activities and financials by Superintendent Aguirre and Tracy Ratcliffe, Council Central staff.
Then we'll open up a public hearing to accept comments on revenue sources for the 2020 operations budget on the capital budget and a potential tax levy increase in 2020. Our next park district board meeting is next Monday, November 25th, where we will vote on the budget and related pieces of legislation.
And as you know, we do this every year.
This meeting will follow immediately after our council meeting.
The Civic Development, Public Assets, and Native Communities Committee is scheduled for December 4th at meeting at 2 o'clock.
Our agenda includes the following items.
A briefing from Director Nehlems on our previously approved monorail oracle legislation passed in September.
He'll provide an updated report on the concessions agreement signed between the Seattle Monorail Services and the city.
Second, we'll consider parks legislation that will authorize the acquisition of rural property to Terry Pettis Park on Lake Union for open space, park and recreation purposes for all of City of Seattle and everyone to enjoy.
Third, we'll consider waterfront legislation authorizing a funding agreement and a future construction agreement between the City and the Seattle Aquarium Society for a new aquarium facility called the Ocean Pavilion And lastly, we will consider several parks-related appointments and several appointments to our new Central Waterfront Oversight Committee.
There are 19 members total, 14 of which are appointed.
The committee will ensure that there is clear planning, coordination, and delivery of operations, maintenance, and security services along the waterfront.
The candidates will be announced in the coming weeks.
You can expect to see their official appointment packets on the November 25th IRC agenda.
There will not be a CIPNA meeting on December 18th.
Thank you.
Thank you Council Member Juarez.
Council Member Herbold.
Thank you.
So there are no items on the full council agenda from the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, Arts Committee.
There's no committee meeting this week.
Just want to let the viewing public know that the Office of Film and Music is continuing its ongoing engagement around its efforts for a inclusive creative economy, and they're hosting a Seattle film industry and community event on Friday evening at El Centro.
I will be in attendance, and I encourage folks with interest in the work of the Office of Film and Music, Office of Economic Development, and the Arts Office, encourage folks to join in.
Also, just want to take a moment to, while we're all here together, collectively celebrate the Washington State Supreme Court win last week.
This is a really significant decision for this council as it relates to passage of the first-in-time legislation.
But more importantly, the impact of this case has on how our local courts do a takings analysis, and it will have the direction of the state Supreme Court to the lower courts to follow the federal rule, and that analysis is going to have, I think, really important positive impacts for policymaking in Seattle and in the rest of Washington State.
In the very near future, we'll hear more about how the, state Supreme Court's direction to the lower courts as it relates to first-chance housing, another bill that this council worked hard to pass, how that direction to the lower courts to use instead of the local analysis on what constitutes a takings, they will also have to use a federal rule analysis, and so we're really hopeful that that's going to result in a positive outcome for our fair chance housing legislation.
Specifically for First in Time, this is a law that the Office of Civil Rights had begun to enforce and then when the lawsuit occurred they had suspended enforcement but they have already developed administrative rules and frequently answered questions so they're working on putting that information back up on their website so that tenants and landlords have good useful information about how to operate and occupy rental housing under this law.
I'm looking forward to working with the city attorney's office to talk more about other areas of policymaking that this state Supreme Court decision opens up now for this council.
Thank you.
Excellent.
Thank you for bringing attention to that as well.
Council Member O'Brien.
Thank you.
The Sustainability and Transportation Committee does not have anything on this afternoon's agenda.
We do have a meeting this week.
We are meeting, let me find out when we're meeting.
Sometime later this week.
I think it's the 21st, Wednesday.
Thank you, Council Member Pacheco.
We're meeting at 9.30 a.m.
There are a number of items on that agenda.
Council Member I think either 21st is Thursday and the 20th is Wednesday if I'm not mistaken?
20th.
You said 21st and Wednesday.
I thought it was the 21st and then Council Member Pacheco corrected me so we're gonna be on the 20th.
Wednesday.
Wednesday morning at 930 a.m.
Got it.
Number of items the reason we're doing this committee meeting is there is a street vacation want to consider the Applicant for the street vacation.
It's the willow street vacation.
It's a project that came before the committee a number of months ago To give us some information and get feedback on the project they it's a for-profit developer that's doing affordable housing there and and they have a deadline to get final paperwork into the state for some state funding by the end of the calendar year.
So we will be taking up that Willow Street vacation.
We also will be taking up the streetcar interlocal agreement.
This is for the existing segments of the streetcar, not the Center City Connector.
This is the agreement between the city and King County on operating of those two existing segments, and King County is concurrently taking up their version of that legislation.
And finally, we're going to have a slate of appointments to the Urban Forestry Commission, the Levy to Move Seattle Oversight Committee, the Seattle Bike Advisory Board, and the Seattle Transit Advisory Board.
I hope to see you all there.
Very good.
Thank you, Councilman O'Brien.
Councilman Pacheco.
Good morning.
Good morning.
There are no plus related items on introduction and referral today.
There are two plus related items on the full council agenda today.
Clerk file 314326, a full lot unit lot subdivision application for 4809 South Willow Street and council bill 119695, the associated ordinance for that subdivision.
Thank you, Council Member Pacheco.
Before we move into executive session, I want to give, I guess it's a plug, Council Member Herbold, when she mentioned film and music, reminded me of something this Wednesday at Garfield in the Quincy Jones Center.
There's a film called On the Brink that we played at 530. I actually purchased with non-city funds for an organization a block of 40 tickets for one group that's gonna go.
And On the Brink is a documentary done by Professor Jeff Shulman on the changes in the Central District primarily, in particular with communities of color and just all the changes getting up to now, the new development and a lot of the historical institutions.
It's nationally acclaimed.
This is supposed to be a really good piece of work by Professor Shulman.
And so there'll be a discussion and talk back after.
So that, I think the doors open at 530. I think the film starts around six.
And so there should be a few hundred people there.
And I'm looking forward to it.
I'll attend that.
It's a really good piece of work.
And I became aware of that through our city clerk Monica's efforts on the archiving, the archiving event for archives.
They had a short, they had Professor Schoen was the keynote speaker and did a great presentation.
So we sort of parlayed that into what's happening Wednesday, this Wednesday at Garfield.
Okay, having said that, we're going to move into executive session.
As presiding officer, I'm announcing that the city council will now convene an executive session.
The purpose of executive session is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.
It gives us an opportunity to discuss confidential legal matters with our city attorneys as authorized by law.
However, a legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure that we reserve questions of public policy in our open public sessions.
And I expect this to last for 30 minutes.
That will be until, oh, geez.
That'll be 30 minutes from now.
Close to 1030. If the executive session is to be extended beyond that time, I'll announce the extension on its expected duration.
With that, let's secure the room.