Seattle City Council Briefing 71723

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Great.

Good afternoon, everybody, to Seattle City Council briefing.

Today is Monday, July 17th.

The council briefing meeting will come to order.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Nelson?

Present.

Council Member Peterson?

Present.

Council Member Sawant?

Present.

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Councilmember Herbold?

Here.

Councilmember Lewis?

Present.

Councilmember Morales?

Here.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Present.

Council President Juarez?

Here.

Nine present.

Thank you.

Let's move on to approval of the minutes.

If there's no objection, the minutes of July 10th will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

Moving on to the President's Report.

On today's agenda, we have no proclamations.

We will have individual reports from Council Members, and we will start with Council Member Nelson today.

We have three items in Executive Session, which are expected to take about 65 minutes collectively.

On tomorrow's agenda, the consent calendar will include the minutes and payment of the bills, as well as one appointment, including one to the Seattle Film Commission that came out of Councilmember Nelson's committee, and she will be speaking to that, I understand.

We will take one vote, as usual, on all items on the consent calendar, unless any Councilmember requests that an item be removed, and if so, we'll take that up at the end of the agenda.

There are six items under committee reports on the agenda tomorrow, so the first five our Council Bill 12067, 68, 69, 70, and 71. And let's see, this is the, this composes the land use recommendations of the Industrial Maritime Strategy.

These ordinances update zoning and development regulations to accommodate emerging trends, take advantage of new opportunities such as new light rail stations, provide stronger land use protections for legacy industries and create healthier transitions between industrial and non-industrial areas, particularly in the Georgetown, South Park, and Ballard neighborhoods.

No doubt you've all heard a lot about this from a lot of our community members.

Land Use Community Chair, Council Member Strauss, will be speaking to each of those items and recommendations tomorrow.

The sixth and final item on tomorrow's agenda is Council Bill 120608. And that's an ordinance clarifying the role, governance and operating procedures of the Community Police Commission.

And as you know, our chair of Public Safety Councilmember Herboldt will be speaking to that item.

Information on all these items, as usual, is available online.

Again, I'd like to remind everyone that after today's meeting, our next council briefing will be Monday, August 7th.

And with that, we have no proclamations that I am aware of.

So we'll go right over to city council actions and committee reports.

And as I shared, we will start with council member Nelson.

Well, hello, everyone.

Thank you very much.

There is one item as noted on the agenda tomorrow from the Economic Development, Technology, and City Light Committee.

That is the appointment of Budi Mulyo as member, Seattle Film Commission, for a term to July 23, 2025. And that passed out of committee last week unanimously.

And this is the final appointment to the Film Commission.

And last week's, at last week's Economic Development and City Light Committee, we also had the second roundtable discussion with members of, with several directors of the city's business improvement areas and just synopsis is that a lot is going really well in the neighborhood business districts and there are a lot of creative ways that the BIAs are promoting not just their individual members, but enhancing their communities as well.

They did go on to talk about some of the ongoing challenges.

No surprise, public safety is still at the top of the list, but there were some new issues that were brought to my attention.

And one is the need for more attention paid to illegal dumping and perhaps even more frequent garbage pickup, especially in areas of the city in business district where there's a high concentration of restaurants and bars, but the buildings are somewhat older, so they don't have some of the, everything gets piled up in the alley and it ends up needing to get disposed of more frequently is basically what I'll say.

Another issue that they all mentioned was help navigating the permitting and licensing systems and also someone who could be on point to help navigate interdepartmental red tape or snafus.

And I assured them that that is something that the Office of Economic Development is focusing on, is basically front desk support for small business owners going forward.

And we'll hear more about that as the year progresses when we talk about the future of Seattle economy.

And then finally, one thing that they did remind the small businesses are having a really hard time finding and maintaining their insurance policies.

And so they floated this idea last year for some kind of report or analysis of what's going on in the insurance market in Seattle.

And I didn't advance that last year, but it is an ongoing problem.

So I do believe that I should be talking to OIR to find out whether or not there needs to be some communication with the insurance, you know, commissioner at the state.

So, more on that later, but it was a really good discussion to have those folks back in and have the voice of small business at the table.

meeting is going to be on July 26th and we'll have a presentation by OED on its community wealth building program, a presentation by OED on its future of Seattle economy investment agenda, four reappointments to the Seattle Music Commission, a briefing discussion and possible vote on a resolution endorsing the OED's future Seattle economy agenda, and then a presentation by accounting and consulting firm Baker Lilly on its annual audit of City Light.

That's it for next meeting.

And then, so report from the committee on last week's out and abouts.

Last Wednesday, I spoke at the construction celebration of 900 Rainier, which will be the largest privately funded project in Seattle.

with a range of mixed income units.

And they are employing the MFTE and on-site performance to provide about a third of the units at around 70% affordability.

So that is a really exciting project that's going in there.

It's in an opportunity zone.

You might've heard about it on the news.

And I was joined by King County Executive Dow Constantine, King County Council members, Deputy Mayor Wong, SDCI Director, Nathan Torkelson, and a whole bunch of the construction and financing team.

Really interesting to hear what's going on with construction financing in other parts of the country.

So my staff and I went to the Woodland Park Zoo again for our second visit there.

We toured the facility with Kirsten Swartz, who is the Director of Government Relations and Advocacy.

We got a glimpse of plans for a new exhibit that will be in the location of the Day and Night House that burned down a few years ago.

And we also heard more about their overall master plan update plans, and that will include a rebuilt giraffe farm.

And so we got to feed giraffes and the hippos.

So, meetings this week.

Today after briefings, I'll be heading over to the Fifth Avenue Theater to bid farewell to Bernie, who has been the force of nature behind the theater for so, so many years.

Great to be able to say goodbye to her, but I'm sure she'll still be around and extremely active.

And then I will be participating in a public safety forum sponsored by Belltown United and the West Precinct Advisory Council tomorrow night.

That's it for me.

Any questions?

Seeing none, I will pass it to Council Member Peterson.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

There are no items from our Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee on the full council agenda tomorrow afternoon.

Our next committee meeting of Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities is currently scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday, July 18 at 9.30 a.m.

We have six items on our committee agenda, five of which are for a possible vote.

Council Bill 120614 will authorize SDOT to accept various grants.

Council Bill 120613 would authorize approval of the permit to continue the Skybridge above 300 Pine Street as recommended by SDOT.

To assist our committee with this routine approval, our Central Staff Analyst, Lish Whitson, wrote a memo that is attached to the agenda.

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Our committee is voting on the additional automated camera enforcement authority granted by the state government to discourage dangerous drag racing.

So Council Bill 120600, co-sponsored by Councilmember Herbold and me.

We originally heard it in our committee on June 20. and we'll vote on it tomorrow.

By designating our city's initial list of dangerous drag racing zones, Council 120600 will qualify those danger zones for eventual installation of traffic enforcement cameras.

We have two amendments on tomorrow's agenda.

The first is a technical amendment from central staff to sync up various legislative language.

Amendment number two is a list of the additional arterials that are susceptible to dangerous drag racing that colleagues provided to central staff.

to include in the legislation.

So thank you for that input from the district council members.

For those additional arterials containing an amendment to each district council member will of course have the opportunity to speak to their additions at the committee.

If you have questions about council 120600, please confer with Calvin Chow before tomorrow's committee.

Item four on our agenda will be a briefing and discussion from our Seattle Department of Transportation on their annual equity report.

Council 120611 will authorize a property transfer from Seattle Public Utilities to Seattle Public Schools.

to benefit Rainier Beach High School.

This proposal has been approved by the city's Financial Administrative Services Department and we'll have a public hearing tomorrow in committee on that.

If the public hearing goes well and if committee members are comfortable, we may move to suspend the rules for a vote on the same day as public hearing so we can advance that out of our committee tomorrow.

Then finally, we have Council 1-2-0-6-12 that would authorize approval of a contract for processing and composting food and yard waste and other organics as recommended by Seattle Public Utilities.

To assist us with this relatively straightforward contract approval, our City Council Central Staff Analyst, Brian Goodnight, today circulated his memo, which is also attached to the agenda.

We're likely to hear that item twice at our committee.

As chair of the committee that provides oversight of Seattle Public Utilities, I also serve on the King County Flood Control District Advisory Committee.

On Tuesday, July 11, the King County Flood Control District awarded $1.5 million for an interim flood preparedness and emergency response program to increase protections against flooding in the vulnerable parts of South Park.

So thank you, Councilor Herbold, for your advocacy and really made a difference in getting that across the finish line for your constituents.

And I realize you may want to talk about that further.

And that is my report.

Any questions before I turn it over to Council Member Szilagyi?

No, we just want to say happy birthday to you.

Thank you very much.

All right, Council Member Szilagyi.

Thank you and good afternoon to everyone.

There are no items on tomorrow's city council agenda from the sustainability and renters rights committee.

The next meeting of the committee will be at the regularly scheduled time.

this Friday, July 21st at 9.30 a.m.

in Council Chambers.

At this meeting on Friday, I hope to call the rent control bill from my office for a vote.

Last Wednesday, we held a special evening Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee meeting in the community at All Pilgrims Church in Capitol Hill to hold a public hearing on rent control.

Thank you to councilmembers Morales, Nelson and Herbold and Leila from council president Morris' office for attending.

I thought the public hearing went extremely well.

The room was packed, standing room only with renters who expressed a deep, deep exhaustion and outrage at ever rising rents.

Working class renters talked about how hard they work only to have most of their income go to their corporate landlords.

Some homeowners and small landlords also spoke in favor of rent control.

People were excited to fight for rent control and talked about how it's popular both from anecdotal references and from the statistical evidence from polls statewide that show that 71% of Washington's likely voters support rent control.

For council members who were not able to listen to the public hearing, I would urge you to watch the Seattle Channel video of the committee.

As I mentioned, I hope to bring the legislation and any amendments to a vote at committee this Friday.

If any council members intend to move an amendment, I would urge you to say so publicly at this briefing so that working class renters have a chance to learn about your amendment, consider it and support any positive amendments in favor of making it stronger and advocate against any corporate loopholes.

That's all I have from the committee.

If there are no questions or comments, which I don't see so far, so I will hand it over to Council Member Strauss.

Thank you so much, Council Member.

Coming from the Land Use Committee, there are five items from the Land Use Committee coming to full council tomorrow, July 18th, 2023. The five items are all part of the package of the industrial maritime legislative zoning changes.

We will have one bill adding three new industrial zones, creating a new Seattle Municipal Code chapter.

We have a council bill to update the 2023 comprehensive plan.

We have a council bill that creates amendments to the city zoning map.

We have a council bill that is a bill adding three new We already have that one, and a bill amending the noise ordinance.

This comes after years of stakeholder engagement and public outreach, and five total hearings in the Land Use Committee.

I'm happy to bring the Industrial Maritime Zoning Changes to full council for final passage.

We were able to hear these bills multiple times in the Land Use Committee in order to ensure committee members had a chance to receive a thorough understanding of these dense bills.

Major stakeholder outreach was conducted to get the package that we have before us today.

This package of legislation represents a multi-year process of negotiation and compromise.

including a facilitated conversation between 2019 and 2021. Those facilitated meetings concluded with recommendations receiving 85% approval from stakeholders who typically disagree.

For reference, the last time we had industrial lands rezoning was in 2007 and the process was controversial.

I am bringing two amendments to full council tomorrow.

These two amendments are technical cleanup amendments in nature.

One of them is strictly just complete technical and cleanup.

The other is retaining the current zoning for an industrial use that was rezoned to outside of an industrial use.

So we're keeping the heart of these zoning changes.

I have checked with LISH and it's my understanding that no other council members have requested additional amendments to be written at any time leading up to our final committee vote or since then.

As I have said, I've invited all council members to join the Land Use Committee and put forward amendments even if you're not part of the Land Use Committee, which is why I've stated additional amendments are not welcome at full council.

We all know that I can make this request, but that I do not have the authority to stop you from bringing an amendment tomorrow.

I do have an additional amendment that does not seem to have support and I will not be bringing it unless there is consensus among stakeholders.

Additionally, outside of these five bills, we are going to take the next few months to work with stakeholders on Resolution 32097, the Industrial and Maritime Transportation Resolution, which advocates for all of the stakeholders in this process, they also agreed upon transportation issues in that facilitated conversation because the bills that we have before us today are land use bills.

There's not a space for transportation issues, which is why we are also passing this resolution.

Originally the resolution was going to come to full council with the rest of this package, but more stakeholder feedback is needed, so we pushed that out to September.

We currently have a draft attached to our most recent land use committee.

We are welcoming additions and feedback.

The deadline for additional feedback is August 1st, and we plan to have this resolution before us in September.

Colleagues, that is the report from the land use committee.

Are there additional questions at this time?

Seeing no additional questions, I am hoping, Council Member Peterson.

Yes, thank you for your leadership getting this across the finish line, Council Member Strauss, and I certainly don't have any amendments, but are you able to let us know the subject matter of the amendment you might be bringing forward or you're trying to get consensus on?

Yes.

Oh, that one.

It's regarding the stadium district.

There's not consensus amongst it.

Happy to chat with you offline.

Okay.

Thank you.

Seeing no further questions, I will now pass it to Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Herbold.

Sorry about that.

Thank you so much, Council Member Strauss, for the handoff.

Sorry, I was slow on the uptake.

So on full council tomorrow, we have one item from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, and that's Council Bill 120608. It's on the full council agenda, and it amends the 2017 Police Accountability Legislation to address some administrative operations issues identified by the Community Police Commission.

My newsletter on Friday included information about questions that we have received from members of the public about the legislation.

It's also available on my blog if you're interested in checking it out.

The Public Safety and Human Services Committee held a special meeting earlier today.

Thank you to committee members for joining us.

our next regularly scheduled Public Safety and Human Services Committee will be on July 25th.

As far as my regular updates, last week I met with Chief Diaz, Southwest Precinct Captain Rivera.

This week I'm meeting with the Inspector General and the CPC leadership later this week.

Yesterday there was a really horrific collision on the 1300 block of Alki Avenue Southwest with one car being sent into the water.

Another was speeding at speeds that have been estimated by constituents to be 75 and up to 100 miles per hour.

I want to publicly thank the bystanders who reacted really quickly to help get the victim out of the car that was submerged in the water.

As Councilmember Peterson mentioned earlier, tomorrow, the Transportation and Public Safety Utilities Committee will hear legislation to establish racing zones to make certain streets eligible for future camera speed enforcement.

One of those areas is, in fact, Alki Avenue Southwest.

I just want to also flag the issue that I know many of you have read about, the disturbing images caught on body-worn video at the East Precinct.

These displays are completely and entirely inappropriate for any workplace, especially a city workplace and especially the police department.

I understand Chief Diaz has pledged full support to the OPA's investigation.

I'm really hoping that the results of that investigation and policies and procedures review that the police department is undertaking will ensure clearly communicated guidelines for their facilities in the future.

On the Seattle Fire Department world, Seattle Fire has responded to 133 bark and brush related fires since July 1st of this year alone.

They would like to remind residents to remove dead plants or bushes as soon as possible and clear the roof and gutters of pine needles and leaves.

Please check the Seattle Fire Department website for more details about how to keep your homes safe from from bark and brush related fires.

On the regional committee front on Thursday, I'll be attending the King County Regional Homelessness Authority Governing Committee meeting.

The agenda includes two resolutions related to the search for a new CEO for the King County Regional Homelessness Authority and an update on the agency's sub-regional plans.

Also on Thursday is the King County Board of Health will be receiving briefings on the King County Public Health Budget and the Board of Health membership and will take action on a rule related to hazardous waste management regulation.

Also, as Council Member Peterson mentioned last week, the King County Flood Control District approved upwards of $1.5 million for a partnership with the City of Seattle to create a South Park Interim Flood Preparedness and Emergency Response Program.

This includes about $1.3 million for installation and maintenance of a temporary flood barrier, including upwards of $500,000 for pumps, $110,000 for an operation staging trailer, and $640,000 for project management and oversight.

In addition, there's funding for public education and outreach, community capacity building, as well as communication materials.

Really appreciate the members of the Flood Control District, Council Member Peterson, and the King County Council for their support of this funding.

Some updates on events coming up this week.

Tomorrow evening, we'll join residents of Arrowhead Gardens at a community meeting regarding plans to resolve the encampment at Myers Way.

This encampment is on both city and state WSDOT property.

This, as I think Other council members have experienced when you have joint ownership, the resolution can be more complex than usual.

I have advocated for the state and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority to resolve the encampment under their state right of way program, which brings additional dollars and temporary housing resources.

They agreed to do so because the encampment is large.

It does take time to assess the location and secure sufficient beds inside for everyone.

I want to publicly thank WSDOT for their efforts, as well as the King County Regional Homelessness Authority and their responsiveness to my request, including leading this week's community meeting to keep neighbors at Arrowhead Gardens up to date, as well as to hear their ongoing concerns.

On Thursday, I will be joining the Seattle Human Services Coalition's Wage Equity Funding Roundtable.

This is a regular convening of human services funders, both private and public, who have been meeting to find a path forward to address wage equity issues, just like the City of Seattle.

Representatives include the City of Seattle, King County, the Ballmer Group, Gates Foundation, United Way of King County, the Seattle Foundation, and others.

Just as a reminder, council's request in Resolution 32094, in that resolution, the council requested that this funding roundtable also discuss how they can commit to addressing wage equity goals to assist the council's consideration of city funding contributions during the 2024 budget deliberations.

And specifically, we're asking for a report to the city in time for our consideration during budget.

That's all I have, folks.

Anybody have any questions or comments?

Seeing and hearing none.

Thank you.

I'll pass it on to Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Herbold.

Good to be here this afternoon, colleagues.

A couple of announcements.

First, Clean City Update.

For July 3rd through July 7th, 113 needles were recovered by the Clean City Initiative at 126 different locations, as well as 26,780 pounds of garbage.

Pivoting now to our updates from the Parks Department.

The kids, families, and caregivers of our city can head to Seattle's beautiful Magnolia neighborhood to wander in five different story walks that feature picture books by Indigenous authors.

The story walks are located at Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center in Magnolia Community Center and Magnolia Farmers Market, as well as the Seattle Public Library's Magnolia branch and the playground near the Discovery Park Visitor Center.

They're available daily, 9 a.m.

to 5 p.m.

through August 31st.

The Story Walks feature a rotating selection of picture books by Indigenous authors, and these include Berry Song by Mikayla Gwade, Finding My Dance by Rhea Thundercloud, Condalon the Wolf Pup with Moonlight in Her Eyes by Sandra Segundo and My Powerful Hair by Carol Lindstrom and Molly of Denali by Sovereign Bills.

Each week the story will move to a different story walk location.

The books were chosen by Daybreak Star preschool teachers and their community to highlight Indigenous stories told by Indigenous authors.

Next, on the library docket, the library has officially launched their new Automated Materials Handling System, or abbreviated to AMHS.

This system will update the technology that is used to sort and process books returned throughout the library system.

It is a huge transition that will make the library far more efficient, but will take a little bit of getting used to for the institution.

Thankfully, this update is all back-end work, so the users and patrons of the library should not notice any changes.

So good to get that update from our partners at the library.

Moving on to committee announcements.

In committee this week, there will be an appointment consideration for Kalandra Childers to the Climate Pledge Arena Giving Council.

Kalandra is a VP at Arts Fund and a former Deputy Director at the Office of Arts and Culture, where she was instrumental in embedding the race and social justice initiative into the broader arts community and into the work of the department.

We will also be considering legislation, again, for the Sandpoint sale I would like to make a comment on the agreement that we discussed two weeks ago at our committee meeting.

There were some outstanding questions.

Tracy has distributed some responses from the department for the consideration of committee members.

If committee members have not received that update from Tracy, please let my office know.

We are happy to distribute it.

on recommendations on that concession agreement at that public committee meeting that we will have on Wednesday.

So I appreciate the work session we had on that in the last committee and appreciate the opportunity to weigh in with this new information to make a final call.

We're also going to be considering some legislation regarding I would like to make a motion to approve a reconfiguration of the aquarium In order to help bridge the funding to have that project be completed on time and on budget.

The aquarium in the intervening year has negotiated a source of private action.

I'm still in the deactivation world in my head.

I would like to make a motion to approve this agreement.

And we would have the city guarantee this private financing agreement.

That is all I want to say now just in briefing but I would to go over the technical details of this with more time and a broader session.

I am not intending to vote on this legislation in this committee meeting this Wednesday.

This is strictly for taking as much time as committee members I want to really go over in detail this legislation and hear from the executive in the aquarium in open session and for the public to be fully briefed on this before voting at our next committee meeting with the hopeful schedule of passing this legislation before our council recess.

I'm happy to make myself available if councilmembers have any questions about this as well.

Finally, we will be considering some I have a question for you.

Through talking to a number of downtown stakeholders, particularly game works that has returned to downtown after shutting down during the pandemic, one of the interesting pieces of information I gleaned from talking to them, as I do when businesses return or come to downtown, I always want to ask how the The folks at GameWorks indicated that this thing called the amusement license fee has a real chilling effect on entertainment-related businesses coming back to the city of Seattle.

they also indicated that a number of cities in the region and the state, including I believe Spokane, have recently decided to repeal a similar fee.

It is not a significant source of revenue for the city.

It brings in only about $100,000 a year of our $1.6 billion general fund.

and I think, I mean, candidly, I think a compelling argument can be made that repeal of the fee to make the city more attractive to entertainment-related businesses will probably, in the end, generate more in sales and B&O tax than keeping this amusement license fee would, candidly.

So we will have an initial discussion on that policy I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

Jasmine and our staff has prepared a helpful memo that provides an overview of this proposal.

The implications of it.

The impact it has on the budget.

I look forward to having this conversation.

I do want to appreciate stakeholders in the downtown for weird small little things can sometimes have a big impact on our efforts to focus on downtown recovery and economic recovery post-COVID.

Finally, I do want to just close by saying I had an absolutely wonderful time last week going to the city of Kirkland to learn about their RACER program, Regional Crisis Response, RCR.

This, of course, is the dual dispatch program that the city of Kirkland has that is currently active and that I had the great privilege of being able to go on a ride along with.

I want to give a shout out to Rob, the mental health clinician who drove Camila, Brown, and I around Kirkland for a morning and let us ask all the questions that we had in the world to learn more about his job and how it's been going in Kirkland and the applicability of that model to Seattle.

It was also really, really great to spend time with the administrators of that program to really learn about how to structure a dual dispatch alternative police response based in public health here in the city of Seattle in terms of how they have it organized.

And to just talk to all of the Kirkland police officers who made themselves available to Camille and I as part of our day, really a full morning and most of the afternoon, learning about this program and talking broadly to first responders in Kirkland.

The Kirkland police officers that we talked to uniformly were incredibly supportive of the program, had nothing but positive things to say about their colleagues, the mental health clinicians who run the dual who are the personnel for the dual dispatch, the amount of deference that these officers give to the mental health clinicians and calls where those responses are warranted.

And probably most important, that since the inception of this program in Kirkland, there's been a 67% reduction in calls of this type resulting in a referral to jail.

So really a phenomenal effort.

I really look forward to continuing our partnership to learn more about it and how we can model our dual dispatch after a lot of the practices that Kirkland is showing are working.

I highly recommend that interested council colleagues go out and make themselves available to do a similar ride-along.

And I do just finally want to thank Kirkland City Council Member Neil Black, who made me aware of this program that I was completely unaware of.

And it's so responsive to our current policy efforts.

and is hopefully going to lead to some great new initiatives here in the city of Seattle.

So longer report than usual, colleagues.

I apologize for that.

But I look forward to a productive week and appreciate the indulgence of going a bit longer than I typically do.

Are there any questions on my presentation before I hand it to Councilmember Morales?

Seeing none, Councilmember Morales?

There we go.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

I will start with my committee.

Last week, the Neighborhoods, Education, Arts, and Rights Committee met and approved 21 appointments to our boards and commissions.

Those will come before full council on the 25th as part of the consent agenda.

The next committee is scheduled for July 28th at 9.30.

This afternoon or this morning I met with, for my monthly meeting with the Department of Neighborhoods, met with Director Jennifer Chow and staff, and was able to say my goodbyes to Sarah Beltz, who is leaving the city after almost 16 years with the Department of Neighborhoods.

Sarah's been hugely supportive and helpful to me and my office as we learn the ins and outs of D.O.N. these last few years.

So I want to thank her very much for her service to the city and send her a fond farewell and best wishes.

Speaking of D.O.N., last week I took a cohort of about a dozen people from PACE, the People's Academy for Community Engagement, on a tour here around City Hall.

and answered questions about civic engagement, how they can reach out to us, their elected leaders, and make sure that we are hearing directly from them about issues that they're having in their communities.

I want to thank and give a shout out to ACRS, who helped organize this particular cohort, and thank them for their work in building our community leaders.

My office had a check-in with REACH at their new office in Hillman City on Rainier.

This was the same day that an encampment of about 35 people at the previous Baskin Robbins 7-Eleven location was swept with less than 24 hours notice.

Most of the folks who were there just moved up the street, did not receive services.

I'm not quite sure what this achieved.

Nevertheless, they were moved from one block to the next.

Our office will continue working with REACH and other partners to make sure that people who are at these encampments get access to the services that they need for their long-term care and stability.

My team is also attending the ongoing Rainier Beach safety meeting hosted by several neighbors, residents in the Rainier Beach area, along with the South Precinct and the Department of Neighborhoods.

We will continue to share information and hear back from neighbors about incidents of gun violence in the neighborhood.

and solutions that each of us are working on.

This week I am attending the monthly Yesler Terrace Community Council meeting.

My team is meeting with the new coordinator of the Van Asselt Community Center to discuss ongoing programming needs for folks in the Othello and New Holly neighborhoods.

We will be in attendance at other Rainier Beach community meetings this week.

And finally, on Friday, I will be hosting my monthly in-district office hours at the Eritrean Center of Greater Seattle on Rainier.

I'm excited to continue connecting with neighbors in person.

and really excited for the opportunity to meet with folks, particularly in the oratory community, who have been reaching out to our office specifically about some driver issues, some challenges that they're having finding parking.

These are truck drivers who worked down at the port, but they are having trouble finding places to leave their cars as they are getting on to their shifts, so we're working with them to try to resolve that, and really looking forward to the opportunity to be in community with them.

Colleagues, that's all I have this week.

It's a quick report.

If there are no questions, then I will hand it over to Councilmember Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Morales.

Hello, colleagues.

This week in the Finance and Housing Committee meeting, there are no items on the full council agenda from the Housing and Finance Committee for this week's full council agenda.

I want to thank the Council President for excusing me from the full council for this week as I could not be with you last Tuesday during full council to do so myself due to a minor emergency that came up that day.

This week, we do have our housing and finance committee meeting.

It is going to be on Wednesday, July 17th at 930 in the morning.

We will have the following items on the agenda.

Number 1, an update on the policies and procedures for the disposal of excess city owned properties, otherwise known as the land disposition policy.

Items two and three are related.

This is the CBO and the central staff's work group response.

It was a slide that we have requested last year that would lead to greater transparency and accountability and process improvements for our budget.

This is in partnership with the city budget office and central staff in my office who've been over the last three years talking about and looking at ways to enhance our budget process and fiscal notes.

Item number 3 on our agenda, ties to those worker recommendations.

And we will have a fiscal note enhancement and budget transparency bill as a preview and concept that we will discuss briefly on Wednesday to tee up for further action in August.

And finally, we will have our first briefing on the mid-year supplemental and grant acceptance ordinance.

This is an opportunity for us to hear an initial briefing from the central staff on the I want to give you a little bit of background on the land disposition policies.

I wanted to preview for those who are not on our a land disposition policy that is very near and dear to my heart.

In 2019, I sponsored an update to the city surplus land policies that stated that when the city has declared a property surplus, we first need to make sure that we're prioritizing the ability to build affordable housing on the land and that wherever possible, when it's feasible, we build housing on that land.

and hold on to public land for the public's good and transfer that land at low or no cost to our affordable housing providers so that they can create affordable housing on site.

One of the biggest barriers that we know about in terms of building affordable housing is securing access to land given how limited land is in this area and the water that surrounds us.

So as we try to increase the ability for more people to be able to live in the city and for our community partners to be able to build in Seattle, One of the best things that we can do is make this surplus land available to them if the city no longer needs it.

We know that land is expensive and hard to come by in Seattle, and with the ability to build on subsidized land or city-owned land, we can draw down the cost of building by upwards of 15% and provide more opportunities for folks to live in our city.

To date, this policy has been successful so far.

We have five sites that have been transferred for affordable housing with more in the pipeline.

I want to thank all of our city departments who've been working under this land disposition policy for the last four years, and we had put into that statute the requirement to do a refresher in four years.

Now we are looking to reaffirm this commitment and codify any additional policies that help strengthen this effort.

And that is why we'll be making some updates to this policy for strengthening it and improving the land disposition policies.

Number one, because Initiative 135 passed, we will be including language referencing the social housing requirements.

And I want to thank Council Member Morales for her partnership with our office and crafting this language to ensure that the city is moving forward with its requirements to conduct feasibility studies on potential land for the ability to build housing on any city surplus land.

I'm also very excited about a new policy that we are working on in partnership with tribes and urban Native organizations with an opportunity to have first opportunity to build on surplus land.

We have heard the call across the nation locally and within our jurisdiction as well.

Thanks to Council President Juarez for her leadership on really raising this issue for us.

We have been working with tribes to find a way to return land back to Native communities and to tribes who have an opportunity to build on land that the city no longer needs.

So this is a policy that gives us the opportunity for Seattle to respond to the ability to transfer land back to tribes and Native communities for greater self-determination, to allow for the furthering of building affordable housing and community services, cultural space, and additional public assets on these public lands.

We are going to be incorporating in our land disposition policies the ability to transfer land to federally recognized tribes and our local indigenous communities.

And we are in partnership with them going to be daylighting some of the initial policy conversation on Wednesday with the intent to come back and have a discussion about this at our next committee meeting.

The Council President has been so great to share with us related news, and I just want to lift up one of those.

Tribal Business News recently issued a report on housing in Indian country that reports that they estimate it would take anywhere between $30 and $60 billion to solve the American Indian housing crisis.

Part of the answer to bringing that cost down is allowing for building on public land that is no longer needed.

in local jurisdictions.

So I'm excited that this is one of the ways that we can help advance the goal of creating housing stability and long-term resilience for our communities across the board, but especially for our local Indigenous communities.

And at the same time, we want to make sure that we continue to work in partnership with all organizations who will then be considered for access to surplus property for those who are at highest risk of displacement.

Colleagues probably remember that we included similar ways to remove barriers to access to funding, not just the land, but access to funding first for our communities at highest risk of displacement.

And this language is incorporated in the Jump Start progressive payroll tax.

We have that directly included in the community self-determination fund created by Jump Start.

And we included language around serving folks who have highest rates of displacement in our housing levy policy that are up for voters consideration this fall as well.

So the effort here on Wednesday will be to daylight that this new policy on land disposition goes hand in hand with those opportunities to create more affordable housing, more roots and community and to ensure greater self-determination for our communities at highest risk of displacement and specifically our tribal partners.

On Wednesday, I'll be joined by the Council President.

In addition to that, the Tribal Relations Directorate, Intergovernmental Relations Office, Tim Rennan, and members of the Indigenous Advisory Council, including Vice Chair Donny Sevenson from Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, and Council Member Jay Mills from the Squamish Tribe.

In addition to that, we will have a initial briefing as I mentioned in last Monday's council briefing on the mid-year supplemental.

As I noted at that meeting, we will have our second meeting on August 2nd where we will consider amendments and we'll possibly vote on legislation.

If there is a mid-year budget amendment that you are considering at this point, again, the council central staff a memo on the supplemental budget is what's circulated today.

Please do take a look at that detailed memo.

It's 15 pages long.

Please do read it before Wednesday.

And if you have any amendments that you would like to include on the supplemental budget, those are due on Monday, July 24th.

Please do make sure to send your amendment request to Eden, Allie, and Tom on central staff.

And they will work with you on the opportunity to sponsor an amendment.

And that's true for folks who are not part of our regular Housing and Finance Committee as well.

You are encouraged to talk to central staff and on behalf of all of our council members who are not part of that committee, I'm happy to include those amendments on your behalf.

And then in terms of updated items for this week Wednesday I'll be attending the Path to an Early Learning Regional Meeting hosted by the National League of Cities Early Childhood Success Team and the City of Seattle Education and Early Learning Program to look at progress across the region on addressing child care needs and looking for ways to increase access to affordable accessible child care across our region.

Wednesday and Thursday, I'll be attending the National League of Cities board meeting.

This will be held in Tacoma, Washington, where our good president of the National League of Cities will be overseeing the meeting, and that is President Victoria Woodard, who also serves as mayor of Tacoma.

Thursday, I'll join the Board of Health meeting, and on Friday, I'll join the Local Progress Housing Steering Committee meeting.

And finally, a huge shout out to the folks at the Delridge Neighborhood Development Association who worked in partnership with Seattle Public Utilities.

Together they had a open house at 5601 on 23rd Avenue just here on Delridge to showcase the Delridge Wetland Park that they will be opening soon.

It's a great city and nonprofit partnership that is really helping to preserve local access to wetlands for both people and are furry creatures like beavers and ducks.

So more to come, and that park will be opening in the next year.

Council President, that is my update.

I don't see any questions, so thanks so much.

Oh, wow.

You got it all then there, Councilmember Mosqueda?

I'm good now, I'm good now.

I have a sticker for you that says Skodan, so it Okay, that's just a private joke between us because we both watch dogs.

So, let me go ahead and tell you what's going on with me.

The governance native communities and tribal governments committee.

There are no items from my committee tomorrow on councils agenda.

However, we do have a meeting this Thursday at 930 am and we have 8 items on our agenda.

And of the 8, 6 of them are appointments, and these are going to be exciting appointments.

1, of course, well, actually, well.

Okay, they're all exciting, but there's a few that I'm a little bit more excited about.

But anyway, we are going to look at a reconfirmation of our office of hearing examiner.

Mr. Ryan pencil.

a reappointment of Iris Friday to the CL Indian Service Commission, and then we have four appointments back to the Indigenous Advisory Council.

First one is our new appointment, welcoming hopefully for position number four, our Indigenous youth age 18 to 29, Megan Castillo, who is currently a program manager at Coyote Central.

Then the other three are reappointments, and that would be beginning with, and Council Member Mosqueda spoke to some of this.

First of all, to the reappointment in position number one to Council Member Donny Stevenson from Muckleshoot Tribal Council.

Reappointment to position number six would be Esther Lacerro, as you all know, the CEO of Seattle Indian Health Board, and then reappointment to position number eight, Asia Tale, the urban Indian organization nominated by the Board of Directors.

Um, from an Asia comes to us and is again, a reappointment to Izzy.

She currently is at the Seattle foundation.

She's a program officer.

And then we have 2 other items, which are going to be great.

Um, for the 1st time ever, the indigenous advisory council is going to unveil very exciting.

Their strategic plan that they've been working on.

Since this council, not only created, but funded this position through department of neighborhoods, big shout out to Francesca.

been working with the Indigenous Advisory Council and of course Tam Rainen from the Mayor's Office, OIR, who's been working and also worked with Councillor Mosqueda on the land back legislation and language.

So thank you.

This is exactly why we created the Indigenous Advisory Council.

So there is an arena, a place to go for this Seattle City Council to look for some direction on not only just Indigenous issues but urban Indian urban Indian issues and tribal issues, and of course, the tribal folks that this is their indigenous land in which we all still do land acknowledgements.

Lastly, some of you, you should have got this today around one o'clock.

We are going to have a briefing and discussion on the biennial council rules review.

Those of you who are maybe a little concerned, it's okay.

Every two years, council revisits the rules, you know, what's working, what's not working, what we need to redefine, refine.

And as you know, 2020 changed a lot of the rules for in-person public comment, for remote public comment, for committees and attendance and all those other issues.

And we wanted to update all those.

The memo is dated July 8th.

It's from Esther Handy regarding Resolution 32096. You should have all gotten it today.

It gives you plenty of time to look at it and possibly come to committee on Thursday.

And if you have any questions, please direct them to Esther and Ali.

So we should be good on that.

And again, we are not voting on it Thursday.

We merely want everyone to have an opportunity to see what the changes are.

And I think just very briefly, There's 24 proposed changes, there's two additional policy options, and that's for consideration from council.

And then there are three proposed rules changes that the central staff is not recommending, or the working group is not recommending.

And the working group, we can put that list together, everyone who was on the working group to put together all of these rules and recommendations.

So with that, let me see here.

Let me go on to what we did last week.

Yes, I attended the Sound Transit North King sub area meeting where staff updated board members on the West Seattle Ballard Link light rail extension.

As you know, we are still examining that and waiting for another committee to make another recommendation about the expansion, the extension for the alternative and also the location of a few other light rail stations.

A big shout out and thank you to our District 5 District Director Leila Geysar who attended the public hearing, Council Member Sawant's Public Hearing Committee on Rent Control Ordinance at Pilgrim's Church, and I believe it was Wednesday, July 12th, beginning at 6. Thank you, Council Member Sawant for putting that out there for discussion, and thank you, Leila, for attending on our behalf, because I understand that it went until at least nine o'clock at night.

So thank you for that.

Coming up this week, we'll be meeting with the Unified Care Team regarding the impacts again of encampments in District 5 and what services we have available for vulnerable people and neighbors living outside or unhoused.

We are still still engaged in collaborative discussions and community input regarding the tiny house village that we have proposed for Lake City Way and that's been going along great.

A big shout out to Lehi and Josh and their staff for working with community and the groups and answering questions and we'll continue to do that and continue to update our constituents of course citywide and of course in D5 about how that tiny house village is progressing.

I will be meeting again with city staff on sound transit issues to get ready for a vote coming up this month.

And let's see if that's anything else.

Oh, we are going to have maple bars in our office tomorrow if you guys want to come by.

All right.

And with that, that concludes my report.

So before any of you leave, we are going to go into executive session.

Council President.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Forgot to say any questions from anybody.

Are the maple bars from Maple Bar?

No, they're from District 5. So yeah, will either be from Annette's or Krispy Kreme.

But you're all welcome to come by tomorrow morning.

And there'll be coffee.

There'll be what?

Oh, there'll be coffee too.

And fry bread.

Just kidding.

There's no fry bread.

There'll just be coffee and maple bars.

That's wonderful.

Maybe fried bread at Daybreak Star Powwow next weekend.

Yes.

And we'll still be celebrating Councilmember Peterson's birthday tomorrow.

So that's why we're having them.

So we'll continue this all week long.

All right.

So with that, is there any other questions before I make an announcement about executive session?

All right.

I do not see or hear anyone having any questions for me.

So we are going to move into executive session and we have three items.

And those 3 items we believe will take about 65 minutes.

So, let me go ahead and read into the record as we officially move into executive session.

Hearing no further business, we will now move into executive session as presiding officer.

I'm announcing that the Seattle City Council, but now convene into executive session.

The purpose of the executive session is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.

The council's executive session is an opportunity for council to discuss confidential legal matters and a city attorney as authorized by law with city attorneys as authorized by law.

A legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure that council reserves questions of policy for open session.

I expect the time of the executive session to last sixty five minutes and our clerk will notify us the exact time on that.

So I'm guessing it'll be 4 0 5, but it would be 4 0 8 council president.

Okay, I stand corrected 4 0 8. If the executive session is to be extended beyond that time, I will announce the extension and the expected duration at the conclusion of the executive session.

This council briefing will be automatically adjourned.

The next regularly scheduled council briefing meeting is on Monday, August 7th at 2. So with that, council is now in executive session.