Select Committee on Seattle Transportation Benefit District Funding 71020

Council Member Mosqueda.

Council Member Sawant.

Here.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Chair Peterson.

Here.

Seven present.

Thank you.

If there's no objection, the agenda for today's meeting will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We have just one item on the agenda.

I do have a quick chair's report to set some context, then we'll hear public comment, and then we'll get to the presentation from the executive.

Calvin Chow from central staff is on the line so we can direct questions to the executive, also to Calvin, and we'll talk more about the schedule here in a second.

Good morning colleagues.

Thank you for being here today for the first meeting of this select committee on Seattle Transportation Benefit District funding.

Allow me to use my opening remarks as chair to highlight the purpose of this committee, the schedule, initial support from stakeholders, and initial thoughts on funding.

So for the benefit of the general public, Council President Gonzalez established this temporary committee of all nine council members so we can put in front of voters the opportunity to renew the funding that's expiring for our successful Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

As we know, a benefit district is a key tool Washington state law provides to cities to raise money for transportation needs.

Seattle has consistently focused our benefit district on supplementing bus service, providing free transit passes to those in need, and providing other transit solutions.

And thankfully, that's the proposal before us today.

Today, we'll have an overview of the Seattle Transportation Benefit District and the proposal to renew the funding.

In addition to hearing from our city's transportation officials today, all of our meetings will include the council's own central staff expert on transportation, Calvin Chow.

At the end of the presentations, council members can, of course, ask questions.

You can also send your questions directly to our central staffer later, Calvin Chow.

regarding the schedule we will meet again next Friday July 17 at 10 a.m.

to discuss and vote on any amendments.

Please send any ideas for amendments to our central staff analyst Calvin Chow early next week.

The goal is for us as the full City Council to vote on the final measure by Monday July 27. That's because the deadline is August 4 to put this funding source on to the November ballot for voters to consider.

The press release sent to the media Tuesday when the mayor transmitted the draft legislation to us included support from a broad coalition of stakeholders.

The MLK Labor Council, the Urban League, ATU Local 587, Transportation Choices Coalition, the Downtown Seattle Association, Rooted in Rights, and our Transportation Equity Workgroup.

I expect we'll hear public comment today that expresses common ground in wanting to provide more transit service and more funding for transit.

And I believe we have options.

We have several options without needing to drastically amend the legislation before us today, but we can talk about that later today.

If we successfully overturn initiative 976 in the courts, I-976, we can immediately restore the $20 vehicle license fees.

And I will personally support doubling this revenue source immediately to $40, which we're allowed to do with our own councilmanic authority.

I'm also very interested in pursuing additional funding with King County to expand transit and making progress on the collaboration we had before the pandemic struck.

Moving forward to preserve this Seattle funding for transit today does not prevent us from doing more across our region with our transit partners at King County.

In fact, the ordinance as introduced explicitly calls for that continued cooperation to expand transit throughout our county.

So to wrap up these remarks, let me just say I personally believe we must provide Seattle with the option to renew our successful transportation benefit district before it expires this year.

The benefit district's essential, affordable, and green.

Our economy, our workers, and our environment are counting on us to preserve our basic transit services.

Continuing this small tax is necessary as our economy reopens, so we preserve transit subsidies for low-income neighbors, seniors, and students, and to make sure buses get people everywhere they need to go, which includes boosting transit access to and from West Seattle.

I look forward to working with my council colleagues, community stakeholders, our constituents, and our transportation experts here at City Hall on this vital transit measure.

Thank you for allowing me to have these opening remarks and let's go to public comment.

At this time, we'll open the remote public comment period.

I ask that everyone please be patient as we learn to operate this new system in real time and navigate through the inevitable growing pains.

We're continuously looking for ways to fine tune this process and adding new features that allow for additional means of public participation in our council meetings.

It remains the strong intent of the City Council to have public comment regularly included on our meeting agendas.

However, the City Council reserves the right to modify these public comment periods at any point if we deem that the system is being abused.

I will moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

We've got about 14 people signed up right now, so we're going to go ahead and make the comment period 30 minutes.

Each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

I will call on two speakers at a time and in the order registered on the Council's website.

If you've not had a chance yet to register to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of this public comment period by going to the Council's website at Seattle.gov forward slash Council.

The website link for public comment is also listed on today's agenda.

Once I call a speaker's name, our staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt of you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that it's their turn to speak.

Please begin by stating your name and the item you're addressing.

As a reminder, public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left.

If speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time, the microphone will be muted to allow us to call on the next speaker.

Once you've completed your public comment, we ask that you disconnect from the line, and if you plan to continue following this meeting, please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening option shown on the agenda.

So the public comment period is now open.

We'll begin with the first two speakers on the list.

I'd like to hear first from Anna from Rooted in Rights, and then Ryan Packer.

Go ahead, Anna.

Great.

Hi.

This is Anna Ziebarth, program director of Rooted in Rights, part of Disability Rights Washington.

We support additional funding for transit, but we want to encourage the council to try to find ways to have STBD support the region as we all know that we need to be funding public transit on our regional, if not statewide basis.

As transit ridership has plummeted in the pandemic, there are areas within our city, and more critically, areas within our county, where many poor, brown, and black, and immigrant folks live, that are still heavily reliant on King County Metro.

We need to ensure that those of us who are transit dependent can get where we need to go.

We need you to ensure that transit is serving these areas of higher need, even if they are not within the City of Seattle.

We are a regional economy.

The wealth and economic growth in Seattle has priced many brown, black, immigrant, and disabled folks out of the borders of our city.

As we talk about the importance of equity, we must do everything possible to prioritize service to these areas of greatest need.

I know there are legal constraints, but we also want to challenge you to find ways to expand free ORCA passes for high school students to all students within the county.

Imagine in four years when you decide to go to King County voters to support a countywide transit funding measure, how tremendous it would be to have the support of our youth who have had access to their communities in our region through free transit passes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Anna.

Next is Ryan Packer followed by Annie Wise.

Go ahead, Ryan.

Thank you.

My name is Ryan Packer.

The Transit Benefit District proposal released by the mayor is way short of what we need to do to achieve continued success.

Seattle's transit ridership has bucked a national trend of declining ridership, not as a fluke, but because we've invested in it.

78 routes last year received some Transit Benefit District funding.

This would cut that funding by 80%.

which is setting us up for failure.

Just as a context, the proposed 50,000 service hours per year would not even be enough to continue the increased service on just two of those routes, C line and the D line, to say nothing of the other 76. The council should consider finding general fund offsets for programs like the ORCA Opportunity so that the Transit Benefit District funds transit.

And they should also consider additional revenue options to get us up to the 350,000 service hours per year within the next couple of years by the time that pre-COVID transit ridership rebounds.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ryan.

Next up is Annie Wise, followed by Joe Kunzler.

Go ahead, Annie.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Annie Wise, and I am the operations director at MLK Labor, an organization that represents over 100,000 union workers in King County.

MLK Labor has a long history of supporting transit measures similar to the Seattle Transportation Benefit District renewal, and I want to voice my support as a local avid public transit rider.

The climate crisis necessitates that we take action, which includes a shift to using low-carbon methods of transportation and resisting the urge to drive solo whenever possible.

This can happen by ensuring that public transit is reliable and frequent.

I've worked in downtown Seattle for 10 years, and I'm proud to stand with Transportation Choices Coalition and other transit advocates to ensure that folks like myself can continue to work and thrive in the city.

Thanks for your time.

Thank you, Annie.

Next up, Joe Kunzler, followed by Rachel Ludwig.

Go ahead, Joe.

Wow, thank you.

It's a privilege and honor to be back in front of the Seattle City Council today with Deputy Mayor Chipotle-Rangenfell, one of the heroes of Sound Transit Free.

I really want to stress this morning, we do need to I really appreciate the chairman saying that he would bring back the car tabs.

When we beat Tim Eyman, thanks to the courageous leadership of Heidi Wills and the Seattle City Attorney.

It's really important to me that we have a network of bus lanes.

I agree with Council Member Dan Strauss that we need to get these bus lanes done.

We should really call them Heidi Lanes after the hero who brought the U-Pass about, which really gave birth to the Yorker Accord.

The U-Pass is for youth today and do pay homage to our ancestors.

but we should also not just have the Heidi Lane in Ballard, but also a Shefali Lane somewhere in Seattle.

We should also have other lanes to contribute to all the hubris of public transit.

And in that bus lane network, we do need to get done.

And I think it'd be a great use of CARTA money to pay for building these bus lanes because it helps move traffic better as well as freight.

I don't know how much time I've got left, but I just really am hopeful that this STBD does pass and that we get to Councilman at 40 on the car tabs and we get the big wins for King County Metro.

It's one of the best transits in the world, almost as good as Town Transit, and it's good to hear Deputy Mayor Rangeloff is on the call.

I wish her well.

Thank you.

Thank you, Joe.

Next up, we have Rachel Ludwig followed by Matthew Lang.

Go ahead, Rachel.

uh...

i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i Service hours.

This proposal's planning to spend only like 30% of the revenue on service hours and instead spend on other things.

And I don't believe, given the history of sale, we actually expect that this regressive sales tax money on like potholes, whistle, and bridge mitigation will necessarily actually be more equitable than just paying for more service hours.

People who live in Georgetown or South Park have pretty crappy transit now, and it's only going to get worse.

So are we going to build more transit hours for them, or is it going to be for wealthy commuters to downtown?

And while I support the fact that Orcas passes, in fact, I think transit should be free for everyone, I don't think there's a point in having a free bus pass if there's not usable frequent transit.

And with Metro cutting things, we're going to have less frequent transit, and Seattle can help, and that's both inside the city and outside.

People who are disabled or poor or deported have a car, can't make these frequent buses, so please refocus this tax on service hours first, and not other things.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rachel.

Next up is Matthew Lang, followed by Alex Hudson.

Go ahead, Matthew.

Hi there.

My name is Matthew Lang, and I'm the lead organizer of the Transit Riders Union.

Honestly, we are disappointed by the very small amount of funding for transit service.

The amount that's being levied here is not enough.

80,000 hours is is not going to fill the need.

And while the reliance on frequency is important in a normal time, we need to be thinking about our essential workers who might be working night shifts, who don't have access to transit right now.

And I just heard a story about a person who literally had to walk an hour up Aurora because they didn't have night service.

Making sure that the measure focuses on that is important.

We are concerned that as more people go back to commuting to work and riding transit generally, while there is continuing need to practice social distancing and limit the number of riders per coach, Seattle will need more transit, not less.

Therefore, it's concerning to us that transit service cuts are planned for this fall.

uh...

more to more expected this year next year now uh...

we definitely understand that raising reading the uh...

written about uh...

went to uh...

sales tax would be uh...

raisin regressive tax uh...

at the same time we believe that no orca youth programs and access access programs need to be funded and fully so uh...

we should We should have the council look into whether the funds proposed for roadway maintenance can come from other sources, especially for potholes, and make sure that we can take care of our transit riders, not just road maintenance.

Thank you.

Thank you, Matthew.

Next up is Alex Hudson, followed by Daniel Heppner.

Go ahead, Alex.

Thank you.

I'm Alex Hudson, the Executive Director of Transportation Choices Coalition.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created obviously incredible challenges for people in decimated government budgets.

And as people who can stay home do so to stop the spread, transit ridership has declined.

However, we wish to note that throughout the pandemic, King County Metro has continued to serve people's mobility needs.

and the agency now exceeds 125,000 trips a day, an upward trend that continues to rise.

Despite all of these challenges, the need and benefit for public transit has remained a constant, and we see transit service as a must-have for a functional, equitable economy in order to address the climate crisis and to advance social justice and public safety.

We see this package, which we are supporting, as a bridge towards our ultimate goal, which is re-regionalizing transit funding in King County.

This measure, however, is necessary to bolster transit service through this difficult time.

With the passage of 976 leaving governments with fewer tools to generate transit funding, it is an unfortunate reality that sales tax, which is the only remaining tool, viable tool in the underlying TBD authority, is regressive.

We believe that this proposal attempts to balance the regressive nature of a sales tax and the funding needed to keep transit moving.

However, we must note that this package may not generate enough revenue to adequately meet the needs of transit riders in Seattle.

GCC is committed to continue to working with our partners and find progressive and sustainable revenue sources at the state.

We ask that you continue to commit to re-regionalize.

We appreciate the inclusion of a whereas to this point, and we ask that there be policy language supporting a shift and that planning for that begins promptly.

We ask that the council center equity through this process as they should with all processes and commit to regular application of the RET toolkit to ensure that the funds are benefiting those who have historically borne the harms of government disinvestment, that you continue to measure

Thank you.

Thank you, Alex.

Appreciate it.

And thanks for your constant engagement on this.

Um, we'll, I know be talking with you and your organization a lot.

Um, next we have Daniel Hepner, followed by Don Blankney.

Go ahead, Daniel.

Hi there.

Good morning, council.

I am Daniel from district six.

Uh, over the past 10 years, Seattle has bucked the trend on transit ridership and investment.

In fact, it's a direct result of the investment that they have bucked the trend on ridership.

Dropping vehicle miles traveled was actually the biggest piece of our progress towards our climate goals over the last 10 years.

It would be a tragedy to lose that progress by dropping investment into transit operations.

We need to continue investing in transit at the same level to make sure that it continues to be available as our economy reopens.

We don't want people having to buy cars as they go back to work.

Please find new progressive revenue sources, or at least a last resort, possibly an increased sales tax for the benefit district.

Also, please remove the capital expenditures from the spending plan, as other people have mentioned.

In the current proposal, we are doubling the amount of funding for road maintenance to backfill SDOT's reduced budget.

We don't have extra money to spend on filling potholes when transit service funding is woefully inadequate.

every dollar should be spent on transit operations and low-income resources like orca lift and the youth orca program.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next up we've got Don Blakeney followed by Hendrick DeConk.

Good morning Council Committee Chair Peterson.

Thanks for having me here today.

My name is Don Blakeney and I'm here to speak on behalf of the Downtown Seattle Association and our 1,700 business, non-profit, and resident members.

As champions for downtown, we understand the importance of transportation to the vitality of our city and local economy.

And as Alex Hudson mentioned earlier, COVID-19 has stressed out our transit systems and services and underscored the importance of maintaining a resilient multimodal transportation system that keeps people moving, not only for the next few years, but is also built for the long term.

I'm speaking this morning to express our support for an expanded investment in transit service, transit access, and important capital projects that strengthen our center city by enhancing mobility while creating well-paid jobs to support our city's economic recovery.

We need all options on the table, and thank you for your leadership as we work together to keep Seattle moving in the years ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you, Don.

Next, we have Hendrik de Kock, followed by Brittany Bollet.

Go ahead, Hendrik.

Hi.

My name is Hendrik de Kock.

Speaking from Capitol Hill, I wanted to say the initial Seattle Transit Benefit District was a huge success, and it's because of its investment in bus service that Seattle bucked national trends of dropping bus ridership.

Given that, I am concerned with the allocation of funds in the mayor's proposal.

The primary purpose of this measure should be to fund transit service.

And in particular, fixing of potholes, which should be an SDOT budget, should not be something we are funding.

Road funding is already restricted to the funding mechanisms we use for road funding are already restricted to road funding.

We should not be allocating transit funding towards those same needs.

And I would argue even other capital spending is unnecessary.

I would urge the council to reallocate the capital funds towards transit infrastructure and for transit infrastructure towards transit service, which will be an over 50% increase in that budget in the new proposal.

Thank you.

Thank you, Hendrick.

Next up, we've got Brittany Bollet, followed by Darnell Hibbler.

Go ahead, Brittany.

Hi, good morning, Council Members, Chair Peterson.

My name is Brittany Bush Bollet.

I'm calling on behalf of Sierra Club.

First of all, I would like to thank the city council and the voters of Seattle for their continued commitment to funding transit.

We all know how important it is to get this benefit district renewed.

We have a couple of improvements we would like to suggest.

First of all, we would encourage the city to concentrate as much funding as possible in the service hours and try to fund capital improvements elsewhere with a lens specifically to the most transit dependent to people who work odd hours, the people who cannot drive, people in the south end in areas already underserved and who are already overburdened by environmental pollution.

We would also encourage you to raise the maximum revenue possible by using a 0.2% sales tax increase.

As much as we hate using regressive tax to fund anything, we have to look at the options that we have available to us on the table, and we consider that the benefit of a higher tax rate will outweigh the unfortunate regressivity of the source.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Brittany.

It looks like Ms. Darnell-Hibbler is not present yet, so we're going to go to the next speaker.

That's Robert Crookshanks.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Robert Crookshanks.

I'm a homeowner in District 6. I'm also on the board of the Local CR Club.

You know, this pandemic is a reminder that we need to proactively address problems before they become a crippling and devastating crisis.

We cannot allow a coronavirus to make the climate crisis work or worse.

And especially in a period of economic distress, providing affordable and frequent transit is essential to recovery.

It's essential to keeping people healthy.

It's essential to equity.

So I encourage you all to go as big as you can with your revenue.

Again, not ideal that the option on the table is a regressive sales tax increase, but that is a problem with state legislature.

We encourage you to go with the 0.2% sales tax increment.

The difference between that and 0.1% is not huge in terms of the revenue and the hit to people, but it could be significant in terms of the benefits and transit service that it buys.

We need to restore and preserve as much of the frequent bus service network as we can.

and going to 0.2% sales tax increase helps us do that.

We also need to move money out of the capital road maintenance and into preserving bus service.

There are other sources of revenue at the state and local level we can use to do things like fill potholes that are restricted to that use.

We shouldn't be rating one of the very few pots of money we have available for transit service to do things like road maintenance.

So I encourage you all to go as big as you can and make sure that money is going into preserving bus hours, services, routes, frequency.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Robert.

That's all the speakers that we have that have registered.

But for those who are viewing, please email us at council at Seattle.gov.

Council, of course, spelled like City Council, council at Seattle.gov.

We'll reach all nine council members.

And right now we're going to get to the items of business.

It's just the one item.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Agenda N1, Seattle Department of Transportation presentation of proposal for briefing and discussion.

Thank you, clerk.

Appreciate that.

So council members and the public, you know, we have, um, there are three items that you can click into.

We're gonna, uh, have, um, the executive pull up there and start to show their, uh, PowerPoint presentation.

there are only 14 slides, so we'll go through that, and then we'll ask questions at the end.

There's also the memo written by our central staffer, Calvin Chow, and then the draft council bill itself.

So regarding folks from the executive, thank you for taking the time, and thank you for everybody who called in and took the time to call in today, and those who are watching today, we really appreciate that.

And so I'd like to turn it over to the deputy mayor so you can introduce your team from the executive.

Good morning.

Good morning, Councilmembers, and thank you for having us here today.

So I will just kick this presentation off.

Once again, it's Deputy Mayor Shefali Ranganathan, for those who are listening on the phone.

And with me, we have the team of Karen Melanson, who is the Deputy Director for Policy Programs and Finance at SDOT, and Candida Lorenzana, who is the head of the transit and mobility division, and also joining us is Elliot Helmbrecht, who is the Mayor's Transportation Policy Advisor.

So I will just kick this off by saying, you know, close to this time six years ago, when I still worked at Transportation Choices Coalition, a previous council was putting the final touches on what was then an emergency transit measure to put on the ballot to to stave off potential transit cuts due to the loss of the King County region-wide measure.

Obviously, much has changed since then.

That investment that the Seattle voters approved so overwhelmingly six years ago has been transformative for the city of Seattle.

We have seen record ridership, as many of the folks who gave public comment provided.

We have seen, you know, just complete transformation of transit access in the city, with the neighborhoods all across the city getting more frequent and reliable transit.

We've also seen investments in the Orca Opportunity Program, which also supports Seattle public school students to be able to take the bus to school and to other places, as well as the program that now currently serves low-income residents at Seattle Housing Authority projects.

This has been a very transformative measure.

And quite honestly, when, you know, it was my great pleasure last year, as we began the planning for this measure, we were looking at a routine renewal.

And then Initiative 976 was passed by other voters.

Of course, Seattle voters overwhelmingly rejected that initiative.

And in some ways, that sort of began kind of the series of events that has brought us here today, because what it did is that it took away the $60 car tab that provided half of or close to half of what the Transportation Benefit District funded.

Layered on top of that was, of course, you know, following that was the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And what we saw was a precipitous drop off in ridership as we had stay home orders and also as transit essentially became an essential service with in many ways our transit drivers serving as first responders to get people to essential workers to where they need to go.

Um, and then, you know, I think, uh, layered on top of that, because 2020 can't, uh, is the gift that keeps on giving, uh, is, uh, we had the, we lost the upper, uh, the upper bridge of the West, uh, of the West Seattle, uh, bridge, uh, creating, uh, unique connectivity challenges, and more importantly, creating sort of overflow into neighborhoods like South Park and Georgetown that have, we know, already been impacted by, by disproportionate air pollution impacts.

And so what we have tried to put together as a transportation benefit district package for council's consideration really focuses on a few important values.

The first value is that transit very much is a core investment for the city of Seattle.

It is essential for the city's resiliency.

It is essential for our continued prosperity and to create those connections, particularly in communities where transit is literally a lifeline.

And so what we focused on is making sure that this package does center in on communities where transit is an essential connection to jobs, particularly as we continue to have challenges with folks being able to get to where they need to go.

And, you know, while we have seen significant drop-offs in ridership regionwide, Metro still continues to carry about 130,000 riders a day.

And so I wanted to make sure that we were making investments strategically.

The second piece is flexibility, being flexible and responsive to what are the emerging mobility needs that have come upon us as a result of COVID-19?

And the truth is, you know, I think this is a little bit of an, we continue to sort of walk into this with some level of uncertainty.

And so how do we create a package that has enough flexibility in there to make sure that we are able to respond to emerging mobility needs as they come upon us?

The third value is how do we also make sure that this is a prudent use of tax dollars?

We have, in the earlier sort of iteration of the Transportation Benefit District, we had challenges with the delivery of service and that is why the Transportation Benefit District continued to evolve to support capital programs and the worker opportunity.

As we continue to work closely, Metro is a really close partner of ours, we want to make sure that The service that the city is purchasing is not in lieu of service that the county and, you know, Metro should be providing the city as part of the baseline service delivery.

And so how do we continue that partnership and make sure that we are complimentary to what Metro is doing system wide?

And then finally, you know, as several commenters said, we see this measure very much as a bridge to a regional measure.

If you recall, the original genesis of this program was very much as a stopgap measure, right, until the county could develop a regional package.

Unfortunately, we're not there yet, but the mayor remains committed to, she believes that transit is regional.

Several commenters pointed to the fact that displacement has resulted in more folks living in South County and how do we create a robust transit network throughout the county where people can get where they need to go.

So, you know, you heard from the public comment and from, you know, sort of the press statements that there's a broad coalition in support of this from business to labor to community groups.

And, you know, I think that given where we are and given kind of the opportunities both with future options to invest in in transit, particularly if we are successful in our challenge of 976, that will create the availability of additional options.

And wanting to show, wanting to recognize that because of the economic uncertainty that we are walking into as a city and recognizing that the sales tax continues to be one of the most regressive options available to us to be able to make investments.

How do we balance those things but also create a potential that when we sort of are on the upswing and continue to recover as a city and as a region that we have the tools available to us to be able to make those necessary investments in transit.

At that point, I'm going to hand it over to Karen Melanson, who's going to give you a little bit of the background of how we got here, and then Candida will walk through the specifics of the package.

Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

This is Karen Melanson, Deputy Director for Policy Programs and Finance at SDOT.

If we just advance the slides, I will talk a little bit about the background, the prior measure, the measure that is expiring this year and some successes and then we'll move into the proposal.

to the city of Seattle.

This is a proposal that would maintain the 0.1% sales tax and is expected to generate between 20 and 30 million annually over the next six years.

This funding will go toward essential transit service, transit related capital projects and transit access programs like work opportunity.

If approved by the city This measure ensures that the critical elements and bus routes of Seattle's transit network are maintained, that equitable access to transit continues to be prioritized, and it allows the city to scale up service as Seattle's transit ridership recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic.

So we want to take a moment to highlight some of the current program's successes.

Seattle was the fastest-growing big city in the country over the previous decade, with the population growing by almost 24% since 2010. Each new person in Seattle increases demand for convenient travel options across the city and the region, and it is critical that every mode of transportation is reliable, accessible, and affordable.

Our STBD played a significant role in making that possible.

For example, our STPD provided the city with the additional resources needed to have one of the highest rates of increased transit ridership in the country.

Thanks to our investments, the majority of urban centers and urban villages in the city have access to at least one route providing 15-minute or better service.

On weekdays alone, STPD has added capacity to the network for over 80,000 riders, and during the height of the Seattle squeeze, we added capacity for 8,000 rides during the morning or afternoon commutes to and from downtown Seattle.

In addition, STBD has also been able to support community-based programs and trainings to increase access to transit for seniors, people with disabilities, and low-income people.

We also want to highlight that in 2017, SDOT completed a racial equity analysis of STBD This analysis looked at the service investments made under the program, as well as the structure and policies of the program.

Key populations evaluated were people of color, low-income households, persons with disabilities, and households with no car ownership.

As a result of this analysis, the council passed a scope change to allow investment in key routes in the northern and southern edges of the city, as well as added investments to ORCA opportunity.

We will speak to our future equity work and how we will continue to work to ensure that our investment decisions are equitable in this new proposal later in the presentation.

I also want to take a minute to say a few words about the Orca Opportunity Program specifically.

Orca Opportunity provides free, unlimited 12-month Orca cards for high school students at Seattle Public Schools, income-eligible middle school students in Seattle Public Schools, and Seattle Promise Scholars.

I will turn it over to Candina Lorenzana.

I think we all know a lot has changed in the past several months and that includes the statewide passage of I-976 and the subsequent court proceedings that have limited our ability to put the vehicle license fee back in front of voters.

It has also necessitated reductions in our current program by 50 percent.

We're also facing a global pandemic with COVID-19 that is seeing reductions in sales tax revenues that support this program and also created uncertainty about how and when transit ridership will return.

In West Seattle for communities in and around West Seattle they are facing mobility crisis with the recent bridge closure in March.

All of these factors combined have influenced the proposal before you today.

While generally we've seen transit ridership decrease with the pandemic we continue to see it being used for essential trips.

As mentioned earlier and in public comment there is over 130 130 thousand essential trips every day that are occurring in the system.

That includes 10 metro routes that Seattle that are Seattle based and serve Seattle areas with higher percentage of communities of color.

As Karen mentioned, transit has been essential to the growth of our city, but it is also essential to recovery.

We can't recover if people can't get around.

Since 2010, we've seen the percent of commuters using transit to get downtown increase, while also seeing a 9% drop in the drive-alone rate.

Transit is not only essential for recovery, but is essential to creating a sustainable city that can meet our climate goals.

This activity proposal aligns with the needs challenges and values we face today by prioritizing these five key areas that include frequent transit for all Seattleites ensuring our transit system is connected and robust and centered on equity.

Ensuring affordable access to mobility.

Addressing acute mobility needs that we're seeing either due to COVID or with the West Seattle Bridge closure.

And also maintaining the sales tax rate that is in place today.

At each phase of reopening we have seen transit ridership increase and it will continue to be an essential service as our economy recovers.

This slide provides details on the elements of the proposal and the average annual investment expected over six years of the six-year life of the proposal.

To provide safe frequent serve safe and frequent transit and to ensure we have a connected system a lot of our investment is focused in two areas service and capital.

Service remains the majority of our investment with a focus on protecting the 15-minute transit network.

On the capital side, these funds would fund transit spot improvements.

Things that you may already see on the street are in process for 2020, as some examples include red bus lanes on Rainier, bus zone upgrades that we've implemented at Lake City Way and 125th, as well as the Lenora Blatt Lane and bus stop improvements that we've done that improve rider experience on the C line and Route 40, some of our most popular routes in the city.

In addition to those spot improvements this also funds a portion of programs that are funded by the current $20 VLF which if you recall is at risk with the current I-976 proceedings.

This would focus on ensuring that transit corridors maintain a smooth ride for riders as well as ensuring that signals operate to support transit.

To ensure affordable access to mobility we are maintaining two key programs from the current STPD measure that includes ORCA Opportunity for Use which provides free 12-month passes for all Seattle Public High School students low-income middle school students and Seattle Promise Scholars as well as maintaining funding for our low-income access to transit program which has allowed us to create connections with the community and with seniors people with disabilities and those with low incomes.

Lastly this this proposal also addresses acute mobility needs.

Looking to make investments in bus service either or by taxi service to support some of the needs in West Seattle.

This slide illustrates how are how the spending is proposed to change over time.

I'd like to highlight for you that the 2021 revenues appear lower since sales tax collection does not begin until April 1st of 2021. Over the six year life of the measure a majority of our of the investment remains in transit just over 40 percent.

A quarter each is spent on capital and mobility and the remainder on emerging needs which transitions over the life of the measure to fund citywide transit service.

Transportation remains the second highest cost for many of those in our community.

So through this proposal we have we have put forward many ways we'll be addressing equity in that we'll be addressing equity in this package.

First and foremost as Karen mentioned we did a RSJI analysis in 2017. We would be revisiting that analysis to evaluate future STBD investments.

On the capital side, we would be looking to optimize our investments, ensuring that they're equitably distributed, and ensuring that folks who rely on transit for essential trips have a reliable ride.

As I mentioned, this also fully funds work opportunity and our low-income access program.

And then through the emerging needs bucket.

This will ensure that folks who are impacted by the West Seattle bridge closure have mobility options as well as mitigated impacts that we're seeing in communities such as Georgetown and South Park due to the bridge closure.

We're also planning for future equity work.

As I mentioned we would be updating our 2017 RSGI analysis.

This would allow us to take into account ridership trends that we've seen in COVID-19 and also allow us to align investments with community needs land use and demand as it changes across the city.

We will work closely with our Transit Advisory Board and our Transportation Equity Group to inform these investment decisions.

There are a few links provided for you here for more information on the STB program itself the proposal as well as a link to our four-year report and subsequent year reports.

We are we provide a report every year of this measure that you can go back and look at.

You will find the RSJI analysis report in the year 2 report if you are interested in that as well.

Thank you all for your time.

Look forward to your questions.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate that.

Anything else from the executive or Calvin Chow?

Did you want to add anything before the council members?

I recognize council members to make comments or ask questions.

Council member, this is Calvin Chow from central staff.

One comment I just wanted to highlight for folks.

In the presentation, the executive explained their proposed spending plan.

I just wanted to clarify that The legislation itself, the proposal that goes before voters, establishes spending limits within specific spending categories.

It doesn't explicitly approve a particular spending plan, but it includes maximum limits for transit service, emerging needs, mobility access, and transit infrastructure.

So just to be clear that this is about the enabling legislation that we're asking voters to approve, and then the actual spending would have to come forward as a spending proposal in the budget and deliberated and approved by council in the future.

And would that be on an annual basis?

That would be on an annual basis, yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

So I'd like to open it up to my council colleagues here.

Let's see if I can see you all.

One moment.

So a couple of different ways.

You can just wave at me and I'll call on you or you can do the chat.

I'm happy to hear from folks.

I see Council Member Herbold.

So why don't you go ahead, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

Thank you.

First, Calvin, I'm sorry, I lost track of what you said there.

What elements of what we just heard would be part of an annual spending plan that we would vote on that is not part of the ordinance putting it on the ballot?

The ordinance identifies four categories of eligible spending.

So transit service is identified as a specific use of funds, and it is not capped in terms of the amount of money we could spend.

emerging needs for West Seattle Bridge and COVID response and other emerging needs is identified, and it establishes a cap of up to $6 million annually that could be spent.

Mobility access is identified for up to $10 million annually, and transit infrastructure is identified for up to $9 million annually.

Those are the limits that would be in the ballot, and so within that, the council and the mayor could propose and council could approve expenditures from year to year within those limits.

I have a couple questions.

The slide 12 shows west Seattle emergency need investments going through 2024. And I first want to just express my very, very sincere appreciation for the recognition of the needs in west Seattle.

21 lanes to, we have gone from 21 lanes to 12 lanes.

to get off of the peninsula.

And there's just, there are no amount of detour routes that can make possible moving the same number of cars.

And so the city has some very aggressive mode shift goals from 17% now to 30%.

And we're not going to be able to achieve those goals without I'm not aware of any specific investments in bus service in west Seattle.

And I'm just wondering, could this change depending on the path that SDOT chooses for repair or replace under the repair scenario?

I can see the need tapering off in 2014, but in the replace scenario, it could I know that we are hoping that under the repair scenario that the bridge would be reopened by 2022. So we are giving ourselves a little additional time for the replace scenario.

there are other considerations associated with a really large project like the replacement of a large bridge.

the issue around the capital improvements.

And I know that last year we had talked about the fact that for our frequent transit routes, we had pretty much I'm wondering whether or not Metro has the capacity to reach the capacity for added service because of situations, challenges regarding the constraints of King County Metro's base.

But of course this proposal is smaller than the previous one and I'm just wondering whether or not Metro has the potentially reduced funding for capital improvements.

Oh, and I'm sorry, I had one other question.

On the emerging needs for West Seattle, is Water Taxi Service eligible?

Thank you.

So Council Member White and I take a first shot and Candida and Karen feel free to chime in.

I think on the West York to West Seattle questions, yes, it is a water taxi services and is eligible under the STPD proposal.

And the second thing is, I think you raise a good point, right?

that we will need to adapt accordingly.

If you see sort of in the out years, we sort of put it in the general bucket of transit service.

And I think that, again, I sort of go back to this is why we created some flexibility in the proposal to be able to adapt to those emerging needs.

So, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, Karen or Candida, but I don't think there's anything in the proposal that would preclude our ability to continue to invest in transit service to support future needs if they become emergent.

Yeah, you're right.

We've allowed ourselves some flexibility to address different emerging needs, including West Seattle Bridge impacts if needed.

And on your second question related to kind of what capacity does Metro have to deliver service, we have had past challenges with that.

You know, obviously this is a much more modest investment and we feel confident that Metro within what their future service plans are, they're able to deliver this.

Again, the Transit Capital Program has always meant and has been intended to be a complement to that to make sure that the We are able to have frequent and reliable service through these other investments, also investments in rider experience, you know, investments in bus lanes, those types of things.

And, you know, I think there's some question about sort of potholes.

The truth is that we have a, we have a maintenance program that is continues to need investment in it and the buses on our streets cause significant wear and tear and.

While we are in the process of rebuilding many transit corridors, full-scale, you know, Delridge is a great example, there's going to continue to be a need to invest in capital to make sure that we are able to continue to run the type of transit service that we're running down in those corridors.

So while the maintenance program for the streets may seem sort of adjacent in some ways to the transit program, it is very much necessary and was being funded out of that $20 VLF that we now have lost.

I mean, I think that it's fair to say that if our ability to use the car tabs is restored through the core challenge, that will create additional flexibility around the dollars and being both sort of the VLF that exists that we are collecting in a reserve, but also sort of future to support these needs.

Thank you.

Councilmember Herbold, I will ask other members if they have questions.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Strauss, please.

Thank you, Chair Peterson.

I will be brief with my remarks just to note my full support of this measure.

we want to see the ability to go to a bus stop, not be able to check the schedule, get on that bus and get where people are going without getting stuck in traffic.

And we know transit only lanes and frequent bus service is the way that we can accomplish that.

Bus service is also a climate change solution because we know that during non-COVID times, an immense amount of carbon emissions come from single occupancy vehicles.

And the only real way for people to be able to get out of their car is if they're able to rely on transit service.

Seattle Transportation Benefit District has provided an immense opportunity for the city to be able to bring transit service to the areas that we want, since we have to work in partnership with King County Metro.

We do know that ridership has decreased at the moment, in part due to the public health concerns.

And we know that as we emerge out of this crisis, people will go back to relying on transit, myself included.

I avoid using transit at this time because it's for essential trips only.

And I don't need to necessarily bring additional contacts to people who have to rely on transit or the operators of our transit.

And I do want to take a moment here to thank our operators for being able to get us around the city and the region.

safely.

And it's a big public health concern at this moment.

And I really appreciate our operators.

As folks stated in public comment, Joe, in particular, transit is the way that we move goods and people around our city.

When you look at people being Transit is just simply the freight of people.

And when we're able to move people around our community effectively without getting stuck in traffic, we're able to increase their dependence and their ability to depend on transit.

So with that, I don't really have any questions other than I think that it may be worth considering, and I can follow up with folks offline, as to what the duration of this package should be and if we need to make changes within the percentages I'm looking at your memo right now, Cal, between mobility, access, transit, infrastructure, and emerging needs.

But I just want to compliment Elliot, Deputy Mayor Ringanathan, everyone at SDOT.

Great work so far.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair Strauss.

Other Councilmembers?

Councilmember Morales.

Thank you.

Thanks for this presentation.

I appreciate the opportunity to ask some questions.

I wonder if we could go back to slide eight and talk a little bit more, if we could hear a little bit more about not just these 10 routes, although I'd like a little bit of information about the ridership there, but what other routes would be prioritized and how those decisions are going to be made, because I think what I hear you saying is that there are specific routes that will just be cut.

And I'd just like to understand a little bit more what we are talking about here.

Can jump in here, this one.

This map is actually intended to be an example of the types of ridership trends that we're seeing at the moment.

That would definitely influence the RSJ analysis that we're planning on doing following this.

So that would really be more part of directing as well as our engagement with the Transit Advisor Group and the Transportation Equity Group.

Those would be the elements really directing our investments at this point.

One of the challenges here, I think, as all council members are aware, is King County Metro is facing some of their own financial challenges at the moment, and we don't quite have a clear picture of what their baseline network would look like.

So that is something we would want to work on with them, should this proposal move forward, and figure out what makes the most sense, both from an equity perspective, but what makes sense in the context of the network out there.

And just a follow up.

Yeah.

If you could give a little bit of a ton of what we have information so that these, this becomes a little bit clearer, both for us and for the committee.

I think we'd be looking to begin any analysis either later like later this year once we have a better sense of what Metro's baseline could look like.

I am also happy to share some of the information that is behind this map to give you a better sense of the trends we're seeing on these specific routes as well.

I think the challenge has been The baseline is not clear anymore.

And so what Candida is referencing is that they will need to go through their own service mapping process as it were, where they do have RSGI baked in as one of their service guideline requirements.

And so once we have awareness of kind of what they will provide, then we are able to make decisions as a city around how do we layer on top of that in terms of where we know there will be the needed investments and kind of how do we include an equity lens to make sure that folks who are transit dependent continue to have that frequent reliable service through that partnership.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Morales.

Councilmember Sawant?

Yes.

Thank you.

And I appreciate the presentation, but I also have lots of issues with the way things have There's a lot of obfuscation from the mayor's office about what is actually happening.

And I would appreciate if you all were more clear.

I mean, I don't think that the presentation you have makes it clear to the public what is actually happening here.

And you're all using a lot of happy phrases like strategic and centering equity and optimizing our investments to be equitable.

There's nothing equitable about the politics of austerity.

Let's look at the numbers here.

I don't think this is coming out from your presentation.

What I'm about to say is something that my staff has gleaned from the central staff memo, which I appreciate.

but the presentation that you have is actually a proposal for major cuts to Metro from the city side.

Yes, it's an overall county service, but the city has a big stake in it.

And this whole idea that it's additive, but we don't know how much, well, let's look at how much of a cut the city is proposing, the mayor is proposing.

And unfortunately, not one slide in this presentation compares the old budget to the new one.

Instead, the presentation talks about all the good things that have been funded in the past, which are, I mean, yes, that's great, but that's not really telling us what's about to happen.

And very briefly, the presentation talks about the amount of money that will be raised in the coming years.

But let's be clear, this proposal is about cutting the metro bus trip hours, the city's contribution to the metro bus trip hours from 300,000 to 80,000.

That is a massive cut.

that we are talking about, not only for the working class people and marginalized communities who rely on Metro and especially the essential workers who are also disproportionately represented in the marginalized community, but also the workers at ATU themselves, I mean the Metro themselves represented by the amalgamated Transit Union Local 587. Just to quote from the central staff memo, in 2019, prior to the economic downturn caused by COVID-19, the STBD measure generated $56.2 million and provided approximately 300,000 transit service hours, 15,000 free bus passes for Seattle public school students, and 1,500 free bus passes for Seattle Housing Authority residents.

The proposed level of spending, which is what's under consideration, the proposed level of spending is roughly equivalent to 80,000 annual service hours when combining the transit service and emerging needs category.

For comparison, the STPD purchased approximately 300,000 service hours in 2019 and will reduce service levels to approximately 150,000 annualized hours beginning in September 2020 metro service change.

So, you know, really we're talking about a massive cut The first disservice that's being done to the public is that it's not even being represented honestly, let alone the fact that we haven't even had a conversation about how can we prevent the cuts from happening in the first place.

Straight away, the conversation has gone to, well, how can we make the cuts more equitable?

Well, let's be clear, there's nothing equitable about cuts, period.

So what you're really talking about is the politics of austerity, where you're going to put one community against another and saying, well, we're going to save these few routes, but these other routes will be cut.

That's not equitable at all.

That's the definition of injustice.

And furthermore, we also need to have a conversation about how the shortfalls can be backfilled.

And I don't accept that sales tax, which is the most regressive tax of all, should be used.

I mean, we just, because of our movement, we just won a historic victory of the Amazon tax.

We know this can be done.

Why should we accept a sales tax?

There are other options that also the possibility of developer impact is.

I mean, if you look at the legal, you know, according to state law, the SDPD can legally be funded through any of the following mechanisms.

Sales tax, tolling, property tax, developer impact fees, local improvement district, which is a regional property tax, or vehicle license fee, which is car tax.

So there are options legally that are progressive.

So it's a question of whether the council will actually, and the mayor's office, Mayor Durkin herself, will put any emphasis on the progressive options possible.

So one question for central staff, not that I would expect them to answer it right now, is administratively could the developer impact fees be done in time?

And then the last point I'll make is The mayor's office has frequently made arguments to suggest that less transit will be required because under COVID, people are not taking public transit.

That's absolutely true, yes, and I agree with those who have said that we should minimize the spread of COVID.

If we don't need to use public transit, we shouldn't, so that those who absolutely need to are safer.

I completely agree with that.

to make that claim in relation to SDVD doesn't make sense because this is a six-year proposal.

We are not just talking about what happens under COVID.

These are decisions that will have an impact for later when the pandemic is resolved as well.

That needs to be kept in mind as well.

Thank you.

Calvin, Councilmember Swann brought up your central staff memo, which is really helpful, and just for the viewing public, it is online with today's agenda, and it does talk about other revenue options.

Are you able to address Councilmember Swann's question right now, or is it something you want to get back to us on, or both?

I'm just really briefly, those are the revenue options that state law allows for transportation benefit districts to pursue.

As noted before, the vehicle license fee is not legal under initiative 976. So unless we are successful in overturning that initiative, we won't have access to those revenue sources.

The development impact fee, it may be a little bit more I may need to do a little more research to get back to the council member.

I do think it would take some time to implement and develop the fees, of course, follow the economic cycle a little bit.

So they're less stable than some of the other funding sources.

And it may be difficult to fund things like regular transit service hours based on that.

But it is something that is eligible revenue source for the benefit district.

the city of Seattle has other potential revenue sources that they could bring to bear if they chose.

Councilmember Sawant, I share your interest in real estate developer impact fees as well.

I look forward to Calvin getting back to us with more information on that.

Councilmember Herbold?

that I was working on with Councilmember O'Brien last year.

Well, I guess it was more than last year.

But anyways, where it was left off is, well, first of all, people should understand that it's my understanding that the developer impact fees, the limitation is that it can only be used for capital expenses.

But we do know that capital expenses associated with additional need for transit is an eligible expense.

But the central staff, Ketel Freeman had been working to do a council-driven developer transportation impact fee .

We had made an amendment to the and that project list was appealed to the hearing examiner.

The hearing examiner remanded the SEPA threshold decision of non-significance back to central staff to complete a part of the checklist that is generally applicable to project-specific SEPA review.

I understand that central staff was going to be doing that around November of last year, but then since the hearing examiner also retained jurisdiction, it would allow the appellants to provide I don't know what happened after that point, but the long and the short of it is, these changes to the comp plan were basically setting us up for another set of necessary changes to the comp plan for this March.

the council did not take up the 2020 comp plan update this March.

And so I think there, as Calvin mentioned, there's some question about how quickly we could move forward a transportation development impact fee program without making these necessary changes to the comp plan.

But I too am very interested in having more information about that.

And council members if I may just the city actually has two venues two avenues of authority for developer fees.

One is the Growth Management Act authority that Council Member Herbold was talking about.

There is actually separate state legislation that the Transportation Benefit District legislation actually allows a different kind of impact fee authority for benefit districts that may have little difference in the technicalities.

Of course, we have seen other jurisdictions use the Growth Management Act authority before.

We haven't seen anyone use the Transportation Benefit District authority, so there's...

Well, yes, let's look into that.

And this is Elliot and while developing this proposal, I think we looked at the other options available and recognizing things like tolling developer impact fees.

lids, all that stuff wouldn't fit on the timeline that matched with when this STBD was expiring at the end of this year.

We saw that as a one-year, two-year sort of process.

And like Shefali mentioned, we're committed to finding additional sources of revenue for transit in Seattle, but we were up against a deadline of this one when developing this proposal.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmembers Juarez and Lewis, I can't see you, so if you can just chime in if you have any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

This is Councilmember Juarez.

I'm sorry, Councilmember Lewis, were you ahead of me?

You can go first, Councilmember Juarez.

Perfectly fine.

So Kelvin, I'm looking at your memo, and thank you yesterday for walking me through some other issues, and also to the staff, the SDOT staff that worked with my staff and I yesterday and went through the PowerPoint.

Page two of your memo, I think it's five pages, and this may, I may be oversimplifying this question, but, and this goes to what Council Member Sawant was talking about, the politics of austerity and the sales tax, So if the FTBD measure is not renewed, and there's no additional transit funding, and we don't see anything, at least right now, coming from the state or the feds, and we don't know what's going to happen with the challenge of 976, which is in the Washington State Supreme Court, what's the worst case scenario?

When you say there's money in the reserves to last through the worst case scenario we are talking here?

It means that we would not have any revenue to purchase any transit service or pay for bus passes or any of the other programmatic investments past the end of this year and transit service past March of 2021.

The spending levels in the categories, those five, the transit services, emerging needs, all of that goes away, correct?

That's correct.

So we have money now up until March to attend to these needs, and then after that, it would all go away.

And the March money, some of it is more about our contractual obligations with Metro.

We can only make service changes on their schedule in the fall and in the spring.

So SDOT has preserved some money to make sure that we can meet our contractual obligations to get to the service change in March.

And I know we talked a little bit about this.

And maybe the SDOT folks, and I apologize for not remembering everybody's name, we talked at length.

certainly with my participation on Sound Transit and with the Puget Sound Regional Council Transportation Board, the impact to what we're looking at as Council Member Herbold raised to the West Seattle Bridge and how much money we're allocating to redesign and rebuild.

And now that we know that there is no bridge and now we know we need additional services, is it fair to say then that West Seattle would take a major hit in transportation and just getting downtown?

Council Member you're referring to if we wouldn't pass the measure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We would in addition to what Calvin saying we wouldn't be able to purchase service past March.

So not only West Seattle but the entire city would see the impacts of reduced service both from the city's investment and from Metro's own budget challenges.

And those impacts would be felt very acutely in the West Seattle Peninsula because of the West Seattle Bridge closure too.

Right, that's what I was getting at.

That seems to be the most emergent issue right now in regards to the three transportation committees where they all dovetail, and everyone is kind of sitting back.

And I think we discussed this yesterday as well, how we address, and we should also thank Congresswoman Jayapal for her wonderful speech on the floor advocating for federal money for the West Seattle Bridge.

But again, getting back to this tax and the renewal of it, My concern is because a lot of us are getting light rail, and we have a 10-minute walk shed to different bus areas.

I do have a concern, obviously, Councilmember Herbold does as well, the impact to those thousands of people that live in West Seattle that need to get downtown and rely on this, and also the Seattle Public School, where we provide ORCA cards.

So that's my concern, so thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for your leadership.

I know you've been working on this for several months with the department and with the mayor's office to get something in place.

There are a few transportation projects or programs that I talked more about last year with neighbors than with the community when I was a candidate for City Council, then the Transportation Benefit District.

I mean, I just think it has had an amazing transformational impact on public transportation in Seattle and indeed in the region.

So I am glad that just given the challenging circumstances, we've worked out a plan to move forward and get something renewed.

I am glad for the discretion to not expand more of our councilmatic sales tax authority, just given the economic nature of what folks are going through and the regressive nature of a sales tax.

So I'm glad that we are simply pursuing a renewal and not an expansion of the Councilmatic Sales Tax Authority.

I would just signal here that I do eagerly await the ability for us to change up the formula again in a supplemental way.

Once we do get more guidance on the fate of our ability to meaningfully include car tabs, again, as part of how we can guarantee and provide this essential service, you know, look forward to continuing to follow your leadership here on this committee and look forward to supporting this proposal.

I want to also thank the department for I'm giving me a very detailed briefing that allowed me to resolve most of my underlying questions prior to the meeting today.

So I appreciated the opportunity to meet for that briefing yesterday and really thoroughly understand the proposal and I'm excited to be an advocate for this.

Thank you.

Any other questions from councilmembers?

I want to remind folks that you can get your questions to Calvin the appropriate people in the executive to help answer those questions.

As well, if you have amendments that you'd like to work up, send those ideas to Calvin.

Ideally, Monday would be great.

We know that's really pressed, but early next week to Calvin, get any amendment ideas to him.

We are meeting again next Friday, same time, 10 a.m.

on Friday, July 17th.

and really want to thank all the folks who called in today, those people who are watching today.

I want to echo Vice Chair Strauss' comments, thanking the bus drivers who are getting essential workers where they need to go right now during COVID, and the advocates who called in as well.

Any final remarks from my council colleagues before we adjourn?

Okay.

Well, we've reached the end of our agenda, and our next meeting is Friday, July 17 at 10 a.m.

If there are no further questions or comments, we are adjourned.

Thank you, everybody.