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City Council Special Meeting Auto captions

Monday, July 27, 2020

7:00 PM · 2h 5m
2. AGENDA ITEMS
2a
Public Comment Sign up in advance at issaquahwa.gov/signup
packet pp.5–14
Staff report:
On July 20, 2020, the Administration provided an Informational Update, ID 0730, regarding Housing Stability during the COVID-19 Emergency. During this presentation, the Administration provided an overview of housing stability within the national and local context of the COVID-19 emergency, followed by Housing Stability Options available to residents in our community and possible actions the City may consider to support these efforts.
2b
Housing Stability: Local Defense Against Evictions AB 8013
Carried 7-0
Adopt Ordinance · packet pp.15–17
Topics: HousingLand Use
Staff report:
At the July 27 meeting, staff will provide a brief overview of the City’s transition to virtual City Council meetings, followed by Council
Roll call:
Moved by REH · seconded by HUNT
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Stacy Goodman, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh
2c
Virtual Meeting Check-In ID 0735
0:00 gain a remote meeting and before we move
0:02 on to tonight's agenda item i'd like to
0:04 acknowledge
0:05 uh the remote meeting format on march 6
0:08 i issued an emergency proclamation
0:10 declaring a civil emergency
0:12 in the city due to the covet-19 outbreak
0:15 on march 24th the governor issued
0:17 proclamation 20-28 prohibiting meetings
0:20 that fall
0:21 under the open public meetings act such
0:23 as our city council meetings from being
0:25 conducted in person
0:27 the prohibition has been extended
0:28 through august 1st
0:30 tonight's meeting will be held entirely
0:33 the meeting will be recorded
0:34 streamed live and available for later
0:36 viewing on the city's youtube channel
0:38 a call-in number was provided on the
0:40 meeting agenda
0:41 for members of the public who wish to
0:43 call in by phone to listen live to the
0:45 meeting or make comments
0:47 some of you signed up in advance to make
0:49 comments if anyone is on the call who
0:50 did not sign up
0:52 but would like to speak please press
0:55 star 3 on your phone and we will add you
0:57 to the speakers list
0:59 at this point in time we'll take a
1:01 moment to take a roll call of the
1:02 council members in attendance so please
1:04 stay
1:05 here when i call your name councilmember
1:07 d michelle
1:08 here thank you councilmember goodman
1:11 here
1:12 thank you councilmember hall here
1:15 thanks council president hunt here
1:19 thank you councilmember marks here
1:22 deputy council president ray here
1:25 council councilmember walsh here
1:29 thank you all seven of our council
1:30 members are in attendance this evening
1:33 we also have various city staff that are
1:35 participating in tonight's special
1:36 meeting including city administrator
1:38 wally bopkowitz
1:39 city attorney jim haney human services
1:41 coordinator monica negrilla
1:43 city clerks tina eggers and deputy city
1:45 clerk tisha geiser
1:47 other city staff may also be in
1:49 attendance and for those members of the
1:51 public on the call welcome
1:53 the clerk or i will call on you to make
1:54 comments when we reach that portion of
1:56 the agenda
1:57 so we do have some meeting guidelines to
1:59 go over for all meeting attendees
2:02 please speak clearly and pause
2:04 frequently state your name each time
2:06 before speaking and mute your microphone
2:08 when you are not speaking
2:10 if you are also streaming the live video
2:12 feed please turn the sound off
2:14 as there is a delay for council members
2:17 please continue to use the chat box to
2:19 indicate when you wish to speak
2:21 please identify yourself on camera
2:24 before you ask a question
2:26 make a motion or second emotion or
2:28 participate in debate
2:30 the next item on our agenda this evening
2:32 is public comment and for those
2:33 providing comments
2:34 please make sure to direct your comments
2:36 to the whole council and not individuals
2:39 well this is not a question and answer
2:41 session we will contact you to follow up
2:43 if needed and i will note that there
2:44 were some
2:46 correspondence received today that does
2:47 have questions in it when recognized and
2:50 mute your microphone and on your phone
2:52 star sticks may be an option to do that
2:55 state your name address and relationship
2:57 to the city
2:58 speak clearly and pause frequently
3:01 please limit your comments to five
3:02 minutes and please remove your
3:04 microphone when done
3:06 if you do not respond after your name or
3:07 phone number is called or if your
3:09 connection is lost unexpectedly
3:11 the meeting will still need to proceed
3:13 you are encouraged to rejoin the meeting
3:15 if able
3:16 personal attacks obscene language
3:18 derogatory remarks and disruptive
3:20 behavior will not be permitted and if
3:22 the speaker is out of order
3:23 i will ask them to stop and mute their
3:25 microphone but if a speaker does not
3:27 comply i may direct staff to mute the
3:29 microphone
3:29 if a distraction to the meeting occurs
3:31 an order cannot be restored i may have
3:33 to direct staff to remove you from the
3:35 call
3:36 citizen comments written and verbal are
3:38 an important aspect of the public
3:39 process
3:40 and the city council and the mayor takes
3:42 these comments seriously
3:43 and we thank you for taking the time
3:45 tonight to address us
3:47 city clerk can you please identify the
3:48 first person who has signed up to speak
3:50 this evening
3:52 yes kyle woodring kyle i'm unmuting you
3:55 now
3:57 hi this is kyle woodrum can you guys
3:59 hear me yes yes
4:01 thank you kyle thanks hi uh kyle
4:04 woodbring i am the government affairs
4:06 director for the rental housing
4:07 association of washington
4:09 um rha is the trade association that has
4:11 membership of over five thousand housing
4:13 providers
4:14 who pay less than 20 a month for forms
4:17 education
4:18 housing advocacy and other resources
4:20 designed for self-managed properties
4:22 even before these emergency orders on
4:24 eviction began in the spring
4:26 our organization was one of the first to
4:28 put forward best business practices to
4:30 waive late fees
4:31 hold physical evictions and rent
4:32 increases and work with renters to
4:34 create
4:35 reasonable payment plans that work for
4:36 all parties while we stand ready to work
4:39 with stakeholders and the council to
4:40 develop policies to address the
4:42 financial crisis being felt by both
4:43 tenants and our members
4:45 in issaquah and across the state we have
4:47 some legitimate
4:48 legitimate concerns with the legislation
4:50 that's currently being drafted
4:52 we appreciate that the bill contains
4:53 language that creates a nexus between
4:55 the eviction policy
4:57 and the related related financial
4:59 hardship
5:00 while uncommon there does exist tenants
5:03 who have not experienced these
5:04 covet-related financial hardships that
5:06 are choosing not to pay rent or
5:08 communicate with their housing provider
5:10 and smalling smaller housing providers
5:12 like our members
5:13 are at least situated to endure those
5:15 costs of continuing on payment
5:17 which restricts their ability to create
5:19 workable payment plans with other
5:20 tenants
5:21 and burns through the small rainy day
5:23 funds that they have saved up
5:27 so we appreciate the detailed payment
5:28 plan that's also in the legislation
5:30 but would like to have a conversation uh
5:32 with the crafters of the legislation to
5:34 make sure that the policy aligns with
5:36 previously agreed upon payment plans
5:38 that were based off of the guidance from
5:39 the attorney general and the governor's
5:41 office
5:42 under their eviction bans also as a
5:45 covet-related emergency policy
5:47 we think that this nexus should be also
5:49 extended to the charging of late fees
5:52 uh late fees are one of the only methods
5:53 to incentivize these elected non-payers
5:55 from continually
5:56 refusing to pay around for their housing
5:57 costs and we think that
5:59 that code that nexus should also apply
6:01 to that policy
6:02 i think most importantly having read the
6:05 legislation
6:06 we have some concerns that the bill
6:08 appears to have no sunset date
6:10 or period of time in which um these
6:12 policies would go away
6:14 i think that implies for for our folks
6:16 that this would be a
6:17 policy in perpetuity in the city and i
6:19 think that can contradict the state and
6:21 purpose of the regulations
6:23 so we we'd love to have a conversation
6:25 um and and sort of
6:26 figure out how to work on some of these
6:27 things around the bill um we're glad
6:30 that you guys have
6:30 uh looked at this and are coming up with
6:32 reasonable policies
6:34 but would of course like the stakeholder
6:35 uh the process and bring in some of our
6:38 members who have property in the city um
6:40 and have some concerns around
6:42 these things that that go to their costs
6:46 um appreciate the time thank you kyle i
6:49 wonder if
6:50 uh i just want to make a reminder uh to
6:53 make sure everybody's giving their
6:54 address and relationship to the city and
6:56 i think you did that at the beginning
6:58 kyle
6:58 thank you uh so for the rest of our
7:00 speakers this evening
7:02 also as well please make sure to give
7:03 your address in relationship to the city
7:05 um next on the speaker's list tisha
7:08 yes next we have jane m but i don't see
7:11 her on the line
7:12 so we'll move to kurt krieger kurt i'm
7:15 unmuting you
7:18 thank you my name is kurt craiger
7:21 last name is k-r-e-a-g-e-r
7:25 and i'm speaking to you from bellevue
7:27 washington today um
7:30 i'm a 26-year resident of issaquah up
7:33 until the time when i
7:35 downsized and moved into a condo here in
7:37 bellevue
7:38 so i know it's aqua well um i i'm
7:42 speaking to you
7:42 mostly as a individual
7:46 real estate investor but also as an
7:48 advisor to
7:50 other real estate investors and i do uh
7:53 ditto what kyle was talking about of the
7:56 fact that
7:58 a lot of rental owners are
8:01 small business people we're just
8:03 hard-working people
8:05 we typically don't have the resources to
8:07 weather
8:08 um some of the burdens that we are being
8:11 imposed with
8:12 right now and i can tell you
8:15 that just from experience from feedback
8:18 that i'm getting from many of my
8:21 clients in real estate who own
8:24 investment property
8:26 is that they're opting to sell that
8:28 property
8:29 if they get a vacancy somebody moves
8:33 they're taking a serious look at
8:36 selling their property rather than
8:38 continuing to deal with
8:40 um unfriendly landlord
8:45 laws that are being passed
8:49 and this ultimately hurts long-term the
8:53 tenants that you indeed are trying to
8:55 protect
8:56 now i did send an email um that
8:59 uh to all of you that details this a
9:02 little more
9:03 but i think the three main takeaways
9:05 that i'd like to have are this
9:07 is that the consequences of the actions
9:11 you're considering
9:12 are going to hurt the tenants that you
9:15 indeed are trying to protect
9:18 by reducing the housing stock the less
9:21 friendly you
9:22 are to landlords the more likely they
9:25 are to sell their property
9:28 single families are certainly at risk
9:30 because the market is so hot right now
9:34 uh a landlord gets
9:38 a uh opening a vacancy
9:42 they are opting to spell i can i can
9:44 count about a dozen just in
9:46 in my small world if you cut your if you
9:49 multiply that by thousands of agents
9:52 and multiple thousands of owners
9:55 throughout the king county area
9:58 there is going to be a decline in
10:00 available
10:01 housing therefore costs are going to go
10:03 up and choice is going to be less
10:05 number two is um both uh
10:10 places like the city of auburn and even
10:12 king county
10:13 have decided to table this discussion um
10:18 and wait for the state as i said in my
10:21 email um right now residents are covered
10:26 through october by the state mandate i
10:29 do not see any reasons
10:31 to make hasty decisions um
10:34 when the residents that you are trying
10:37 to protect
10:38 are indeed protected already
10:41 um and third i believe that you need to
10:45 invite stakeholders into the
10:47 conversation both at the state level
10:50 and at the local level to
10:53 craft situations and solutions that'll
10:55 actually solve the problem
10:58 one of the problems we have is that
10:59 people
11:01 are being encouraged to number one get
11:03 farther in depth in their rent
11:06 that certainly is not helpful number two
11:09 um there are people out there that are
11:11 abusing the system
11:12 you do need to make um um some
11:16 consideration for the fact that if
11:18 somebody
11:19 can be paying the rent in is refusing to
11:23 that there is a mechanism somehow
11:26 for that to be resolved i know of
11:28 several people
11:29 who are at risk of losing their rental
11:32 because they can't pay the mortgage
11:33 because they're not being paid by
11:35 by a person who is either working or
11:38 collecting unemployment
11:39 and making more than he used to make
11:43 um so i encourage you to vote no on this
11:46 and i encourage you to table it
11:48 invite uh stakeholders into discussion
11:51 and craft some solutions
11:52 that will actually work long term as i
11:55 said in my email
11:57 affordable housing was a problem before
11:59 cove would ever hit our showers
12:01 this has just made it worse making hasty
12:04 decisions i do not believe
12:06 our independence um in chris
12:10 thank you thank you
12:13 kurt and uh tisha would you tell us who
12:16 our next speaker is and let's make sure
12:18 we get the address and relationship to
12:19 the city thank you
12:21 yes next we have carol gong carol i'm
12:24 unmuting you
12:30 hello can you hear me carol we can hear
12:33 you go ahead
12:34 yeah okay so i'm carol carol gall
12:37 and i'm a property owner at issaquah
12:39 highland
12:41 i have sent you an email earlier
12:44 so i think kyle and
12:48 the previous person made a lot of points
12:52 i just want to make one point is that
12:55 any policy the city of
12:58 issaquah is going to make need to be
13:00 fair
13:02 so i think this piece of legislation
13:05 is not fair it's not going to help the
13:07 city of the issaquah
13:09 uh it's a you know it's kind of
13:12 taking the rental property from the
13:15 property owners
13:16 they have a mortgage they have operating
13:20 expenses to pay
13:22 um so once the thing i just don't
13:24 understand is
13:25 um you know this call the 19 thing
13:28 hit if almost everybody caught everybody
13:32 off the guard
13:33 um so i mean will city of issaquah
13:37 go talk to safeway in in issaquah saying
13:41 okay all the people comes in they hit
13:43 kobe 19
13:44 they come in to get grocery without
13:47 paying
13:48 they have to defer the payment so
13:50 landlord
13:51 is running the business as every other
13:54 business
13:55 they don't have ppp loan like other
13:57 small business
13:58 other big business and if any
14:00 legislation need to consider both sides
14:04 and if you guys going to you know defer
14:07 the payment
14:08 do you have any measures in place to
14:11 help
14:12 the property owner so that's my
14:15 opinion thank you carol thank you for
14:19 joining us
14:19 uh tisha are there any other speakers
14:21 signed up this evening
14:23 uh no one further is signed up i will
14:26 ask if there's anyone else on the call
14:27 who's interested in making comments to
14:29 press
14:29 star 3 on your phone that's
14:32 star 3. let me take just a moment here i
14:36 do see we have a phone and caller who'd
14:38 like to make comments
14:40 phone number 585-414
14:43 i'm unmuting you
14:47 all right thank you so much mayor and
14:48 city council for allowing me to speak at
14:50 the last night this is edmond whittaker
14:51 from the
14:52 senior managing attorney of the housing
14:53 justice project the king county bar
14:55 association
14:56 my relationship to is the quads that we
14:58 represent 95 of all tenants facing
15:00 eviction
15:01 in king county and that includes
15:02 issaquah the
15:05 i heard a lot of the previous comments i
15:06 do want to sort of explain sort of
15:09 some of the things that i think are kind
15:10 of misguided about those for one tenant
15:13 protections when we looked at american
15:15 community service or
15:16 survey data have not actually had a
15:18 negative
15:19 impact on rental housing stock so the
15:22 idea even in normal times that when you
15:24 enact
15:25 cause protections or any other items
15:27 that they would actually have an adverse
15:29 impact on mental health and is this
15:30 frankly not true and it doesn't hold up
15:32 in the empirical data that we've ever
15:33 seen on this issue
15:35 secondly this has been a really
15:37 important ordinance to be able to
15:39 protect some of your most vulnerable
15:40 tenants and you have a lot of them in
15:42 this aqua
15:43 and you would be in danger of
15:44 potentially losing a lot of your
15:45 low-income
15:46 affordable housing tenants if you don't
15:48 pass necessary protections at this point
15:51 the u.s census data right now shows that
15:53 this is a really racialized
15:55 endemic and the impact it's having on
15:57 renters is extremely racialized
16:00 42 percent of black households right now
16:02 in washington have not been able to pay
16:04 change rent
16:05 24 percent of latin x households have
16:07 not been able to pay rent
16:08 for june in contrast eight percent of
16:11 white
16:12 households were not able to pay rent the
16:14 start contrast is extremely racialized
16:17 so what you are doing today is trying to
16:19 correct and put some balance into that
16:21 structure
16:22 i think you heard the earlier comments
16:23 from the rental housing association
16:24 which frankly
16:25 kind of just talked about some concerns
16:27 with maybe the payment plan but the
16:28 payment plan is never going to be
16:29 perfect
16:30 we've had a lot of back and forth on
16:32 what would be a good payment plan i even
16:34 have concerns about having a strict
16:35 standard like this
16:36 because it's not the one-size-fits-all
16:38 category but there are a lot of benefits
16:41 because it gives some certainty to both
16:42 landlords and tenants to have a
16:44 structured payment plan like the one
16:45 that you have here
16:46 and it provides a lot of support to make
16:49 sure that people know what is expected
16:50 of them from both sides
16:52 right now a lot of tenants have were
16:55 forced
16:55 out of their jobs to be able to protect
16:57 our most vulnerable
16:59 members of our society right now because
17:02 of the
17:03 impact that kovat is having we forced a
17:05 lot of people out of their jobs
17:08 we cannot evict them too we need to
17:10 provide some certainty in issaquah i
17:12 think it's making a very
17:14 important step right now to make sure
17:15 that there is some certainty
17:17 and some clarity for everybody on all
17:19 sides within your community
17:21 to know exactly what's expected of them
17:22 the protections they're going to have
17:24 and what they need to do in the upcoming
17:25 months
17:26 to be able to get them back on our feet
17:27 and so hopefully we can all move on
17:29 and the last thing i'll just mention
17:30 that there's a lot of money that we're
17:32 currently
17:32 working on trying to get out the
17:34 landlord there's about 40 million
17:35 dollars that king county
17:37 is looking to provide the landlord to
17:39 provide support
17:41 that has to be spent by october 31st and
17:43 this is going to provide some
17:45 additional support to make sure that
17:47 those tenants who need to get that
17:49 that rental assistance are going to be
17:52 able to do so within that time
17:54 this is really critical because i think
17:56 this is going to be
17:57 probably a longer issue this path that's
18:00 going to go past the state moratorium
18:02 it's likely we're going to see people
18:03 behind on rent going well into winter
18:05 and there might be some additional
18:07 federal stimulus package that's
18:08 currently going to provide some more
18:10 rental assistance
18:11 and we need to build time and to make
18:12 sure that those physical attendants are
18:14 going to be able to access that resource
18:16 and make sure that mailers are
18:17 ultimately going to get paid too
18:18 but we don't want people to get evicted
18:20 in the meantime i urge you to vote yes
18:22 on this this is an important work
18:24 thank you so much thank you edmund tish
18:28 is there anyone else uh indicating a
18:29 desire to speak to the council this
18:31 evening
18:32 no there's not okay thank you very much
18:37 thank you all for joining us this
18:38 evening and providing your perspective
18:40 very helpful
18:46 in addition there have at any point in
18:48 time
18:49 written comments can be submitted to the
18:51 city council
18:52 email address at city council
18:53 disciplinewa.gov
18:55 and in addition comments received by
18:57 email on tonight's agenda topics will be
18:59 acknowledged by the council president
19:01 council president hunt under the
19:03 relevant agenda item
19:05 the next item the next agenda item is
19:08 ab-8013
19:10 housing stability local defense against
19:12 evictions
19:13 the council action as adopt the
19:15 ordinance and at the july 20th city
19:18 council meeting the city council
19:19 directed the administration to prepare
19:21 this item
19:22 for consideration at tonight's special
19:23 counsel meeting i'd like to invite
19:26 associate administrator wally bobkowitz
19:28 to introduce this item
19:30 i'm not sure if it's uh administrator
19:32 bob quits
19:33 or mr haney our legal counsel but i'll
19:36 let whoever wants to jump in jump in
19:38 yes madam mayor members of the council
19:40 let me take a quick start at this uh
19:42 as you know we were asked to work on an
19:45 ordinance
19:46 of other things that happened in the
19:48 world since we were asked to work on the
19:49 ordinance so i'm going to ask city
19:51 attorney jim haney
19:52 to kind of catch us up on the last week
19:55 as well as
19:56 walk through the ordinance and be
19:57 prepared to answer any questions
20:00 jim thank you good evening mayor and
20:04 council
20:05 first of all uh as you'll recall back a
20:09 week ago today
20:10 you requested that we prepare this
20:12 ordinance and at that time
20:14 um it was uncertain whether governor
20:17 inslee was going to
20:20 extend the proclamation
20:24 imposing a moratorium on evictions which
20:27 the governor had
20:29 set to expire august 1st
20:32 it was uncertain whether he was going to
20:35 extend that and he requested that we
20:37 prepare this ordinance
20:39 with an emergency clause so that we
20:41 could make sure it was in effect in case
20:43 the governor's
20:44 order expired last week
20:48 uh in the middle of the week we heard
20:50 that the governor was
20:52 probably going to extend the order uh on
20:55 friday the governor
20:56 did issue a proclamation
21:00 uh it is proclamation 20-19.3
21:05 and he issued the proclamation extending
21:09 the governor's
21:13 moratorium on evictions the proclamation
21:16 does a number of things
21:17 uh first it extends a moratorium on
21:20 evictions
21:22 second it prohibits the charging of late
21:25 fees
21:26 third it requires that there be
21:31 repayment plans although the governor's
21:35 order says that the repayment plan is to
21:38 reasonable based on the individual
21:41 financial circumstances
21:43 health and other circumstances of the
21:46 individual renter and it does provide
21:50 a prohibition on retaliation against
21:53 renters
21:54 for exercising their rights under the
21:56 proclamation
21:57 that went into effect immediately upon
21:59 the governor's signature
22:01 and it is scheduled to expire october
22:03 15th so it is good through
22:06 october 15th
22:08 [Music]
22:09 the ordinance before you is
22:12 an ordinance that would
22:15 do many of the same things that the
22:18 governor's
22:19 order provides it doesn't specifically
22:22 provide for a moratorium on evictions
22:25 rather it provides that
22:28 tenants have a defense against an
22:31 eviction
22:32 for non-payment of rent if the
22:34 non-payment was due to
22:36 a substantial reduction in income
22:40 due to covet 19 or for other reasons
22:43 that were related to covet
22:45 it also provides that
22:49 late fees will be will not be charged
22:52 and it provides tenants with
22:54 a defense against late fees uh
22:57 if they are charged based on this
23:00 ordinance
23:01 it also provides for a payment plan but
23:04 it is more specific
23:05 than the governor's payment plan it
23:08 provides for
23:09 payments based on the amount of rent
23:11 that is due
23:13 and it provides specifics on a payment
23:15 plan
23:16 unlike the governor's order which
23:18 provides
23:19 for a reasonable plan based on the
23:22 tenant's individual
23:23 circumstances it also provides for
23:28 a prohibition on retaliation like the
23:31 governor's order does
23:32 and finally it provides that a tenant
23:34 can
23:37 can terminate their tenancy if they
23:40 [Music]
23:42 early if in fact they lose income
23:45 or job due to to the covid crisis
23:49 so it is quite similar as i say
23:52 it does contain an emergency clause and
23:55 again that was because
23:57 we anticipated that if the governor did
23:59 not
24:00 extend his order that you might want to
24:02 declare an emergency
24:04 and make your ordinance effective
24:05 immediately
24:07 so that's a summary of of what we have
24:10 before you tonight
24:12 thank you mr haney so with all things
24:14 coveted
24:15 you only have to wait a day or two for
24:17 the world to change not a new
24:19 circumstance
24:20 throw another wrench in the works uh a
24:22 lot has happened
24:23 since last monday um both at the
24:26 governor's level but also even within
24:28 our region
24:28 this is a major point of discussion
24:30 between most of us
24:33 and a hope and a desire that between the
24:34 county and the cities in general that we
24:37 can come up with a solution
24:39 that is good um so having said that
24:42 before we
24:43 move to um q a i want to take this
24:46 moment
24:47 just to throw this out to the body of
24:50 seven
24:52 the original action was to bring
24:53 something forward tonight and vote on it
24:55 i want to take the census of the body on
24:58 how you feel
24:59 about proceeding going forward i see
25:01 there are a couple of questions there
25:03 already if we could hold those for a
25:06 second
25:07 i'd really like to sort of hear from the
25:08 council about
25:10 are we going to proceed with this items
25:11 this evening
25:13 and continue on through q a council
25:16 deliberations and voting or does anybody
25:17 have any additional thoughts
25:20 a comment from council member walsh
25:24 thank you remember walsh i
25:27 am oh do you want to do yeah
25:30 yeah i do there's a fabulous suggestion
25:35 in the chat box about having a summary
25:37 of public email because
25:38 uh some of the speakers here this
25:39 evening did send us some but we've had
25:41 more so council president hunt would you
25:43 like to summarize that for us
25:44 yes thank you madam mayor um we did
25:47 receive an email
25:48 from a resident that was concerned about
25:52 balancing all the things that needed to
25:54 balanced and in support of having
25:58 the more certainty around eviction
26:01 so very concerned for the financial
26:04 hardship as well as the health
26:06 concerns around kovid we also received
26:10 about and i apologize if this isn't the
26:14 correct number but we did receive most
26:15 of these emails today and this afternoon
26:18 i believe it's about 12 emails from
26:21 mostly from landlords or landlord
26:24 associated organizations representatives
26:28 of those organizations
26:30 with concerns about the ordinance
26:33 and some of the concerns that were
26:36 recurring were around the timing
26:40 how how long the ordinance
26:43 would last as well as questions
26:47 around questions around unintended
26:51 consequences or concern around
26:52 unintended consequences
26:54 and also um a number of them also spoke
26:56 to that
26:57 the uh the good intent of the bill but
27:00 the concern for the unintended
27:01 consequences
27:02 um and as the mayor pointed out earlier
27:06 some of the
27:07 emails that we received did have
27:08 specific questions in them so
27:11 um and a lot of those questions i
27:13 believe also have a legal
27:14 aspect to the question so rather than
27:16 try to answer those we will make sure to
27:18 get answers out to folks but
27:20 probably need the time to process those
27:23 questions and not
27:24 this evening thank you council president
27:26 i do want to point out to councilmember
27:28 martin council member walsh that your
27:30 name was misspelled on many of the
27:32 emails and so if the city clerks can
27:34 forward those onto you that's probably
27:35 why you're scratching your head going
27:37 there wasn't 12.
27:39 i know because i answered the emails and
27:40 i got bounced back from both of you so
27:42 i'll have to make sure that the two of
27:44 you also get all of those comments
27:47 so again to the group and uh can i
27:50 is is there what is the direction from
27:53 the body going forward
27:54 are we ready to go into q and a on the
27:56 specifics of this ordinance and move
27:58 forward in this vote are there any
27:59 thoughts and if there are no thoughts
28:00 that's great we will just move to
28:03 q a
28:11 council president hunt thank you and
28:14 thank you mayor for the opportunity to
28:17 um take up to take a look at the
28:20 situation
28:21 um holistically so when i did propose
28:24 this and i believe it was unanimous
28:27 to have this come forward this evening
28:30 for our discussion
28:31 that was before we knew that the
28:32 governor would extend the eviction
28:34 moratorium so that is i think an
28:36 important
28:37 context piece of um what has happened
28:40 between the last time we spoke about
28:42 this which was just a week ago
28:44 and today i i appreciate the number
28:48 of comments that we've received from
28:51 different perspectives
28:53 i think that we could we received
28:57 some requests to bring stakeholders into
28:59 the discussion
29:01 and i would like to have a discussion
29:03 this evening i think we have an
29:04 opportunity to
29:06 to have that discussion with council at
29:08 the same time i want to recognize that
29:10 we have
29:11 received a number of requests to bring
29:13 stakeholders into the conversation and
29:15 given the
29:15 context change around the governor's
29:17 eviction moratorium being extended i
29:20 think we
29:21 potentially have that as an option and
29:23 could consider our options this evening
29:26 thank you council president hunt seeing
29:28 a few more comments in here
29:30 i will go to um
29:33 council member walsh and
29:36 council member hull
29:40 councilmember walsh thank you this is
29:42 councilmember walsh
29:44 um i'm interested in having a
29:45 conversation tonight because i
29:47 i think we have the time and there's a
29:49 lot of questions there and a lot of
29:51 things for us to
29:52 discuss i don't know that i feel like
29:54 we're going to get to
29:55 a resolution point but i think we
30:00 we have a conversation that needs to be
30:02 had that's my opinion
30:04 thank you councilmember walsh
30:06 councilmember hall
30:08 thank you mayor paulie this is zach hall
30:10 um yeah i'll echo what's being said
30:12 i would like to also
30:15 have a brief conversation tonight since
30:17 we're all here and we've all kind of
30:18 read
30:19 we're all studied out but i think the
30:23 sense of urgency has shifted
30:25 and i think it's appropriate if the body
30:27 decides to delay it or
30:29 or think about a little bit more go back
30:33 bring more people to the table you know
30:35 recognizing you know we heard a lot
30:37 uh in the past we've heard a lot from
30:38 renters and we heard a lot from
30:40 landlords today too
30:41 so recognizing we're going to have a
30:43 discussion we hear you
30:45 renters you're struggling we hear you
30:46 landlords you're struggling as well
30:48 and we want to you know bring everyone
30:50 together and find a solution that's best
30:52 for our community
30:53 another reason why i think you know i'll
30:56 save those comments uh for later
30:58 those are my initial points thank you
31:01 councilmember hall council member ray
31:02 for a comment
31:04 sure thank you um this is chris ray um
31:07 i i think that we can have a brief
31:09 conversation tonight
31:11 but if we're going to um not take action
31:14 tonight then
31:16 we should save that for a conversation
31:17 that we have with an audience that
31:20 represents all of our stakeholders and
31:21 we can do that
31:23 uh in the future and i um concur with
31:26 councilmember hall the the situation has
31:28 changed and
31:29 we have an opportunity to be a little
31:31 more circumspect about this
31:33 um a week ago we were facing a cliff and
31:35 we're not facing a cliff right now
31:37 um that all being said to the comment
31:40 thing is i think there's still some
31:41 questions that need to be answered about
31:42 what's on the table
31:44 uh these would be the governor's order
31:45 because i don't know that we have
31:46 clarity about
31:48 the distinctions that um we are we are
31:50 drawing some very
31:52 um specific distinctions between what's
31:54 in the governor's order and what's in
31:55 our ordinance and
31:56 it's not clear to me and i'm going to
32:00 guess not clear to the vast majority of
32:02 the public what those distinctions are
32:04 so i think we still have a little bit of
32:05 work to do tonight thank you
32:07 councilmember ray i am looking in a chat
32:09 box and not seeing
32:11 any other folks that would like to
32:13 comment it's pretty clear that there's
32:15 going to be a discussion tonight because
32:16 that is the majority will for sure
32:18 so i'm going to backtrack up through the
32:20 chat box and start off with council
32:22 member ray for a question followed by
32:23 council member dean michelle
32:25 councilmember ray our deputy council
32:26 president ray yeah hi this is chris wray
32:29 and uh this is a multi-part question
32:31 it's all for uh
32:32 city attorney haney um the first is jim
32:35 can you talk about what's the difference
32:37 between
32:38 uh a defense to eviction slash a late
32:41 versus a moratorium on a uh eviction
32:45 slash
32:45 latke
32:48 yeah um i can do that um as you'll
32:51 recall we talked about
32:53 last week that there is a case out there
32:55 called margola associates versus city of
32:58 seattle
32:59 which says that it is valid for
33:03 a city to set up defenses to
33:06 evictions in that case the city of
33:08 seattle set up as a defense to eviction
33:11 a requirement that a landlord be
33:14 registered and if a landlord was not
33:16 registered with the city
33:17 that was a defense to eviction so i
33:20 think the reason that
33:22 these ordinances tend to get phrased as
33:24 a defense
33:26 is because we're trying to fit within
33:28 what the
33:29 supreme court said in the margola case
33:33 was allowed i think
33:36 a moratorium a strict moratorium on
33:39 evictions like
33:40 what the governor has imposed uh may
33:43 take a broader power because then what
33:46 you are looking at
33:47 in terms of an eviction moratorium is
33:50 you are looking at essentially saying
33:52 that
33:52 state law which allows for
33:56 evictions under a specific scheme
33:59 called unlawful detainer you're saying
34:01 that state law no longer applies
34:03 the governor clearly has authority under
34:06 the
34:07 emergency powers granted to the governor
34:09 in rcw
34:12 43.06.220
34:14 to to suspend state law cities do not
34:18 and so we're trying to to thread the
34:21 needle
34:21 as it were by saying that this is a
34:24 defense
34:25 within the means within the limits uh
34:28 of the supreme court statement in
34:29 margola
34:31 so hopefully that answers your question
34:34 counsel president ray it's a multi-part
34:36 question is it not
34:38 is this more question okay yeah um then
34:41 thank you for that it's uh it's very
34:43 it's still
34:43 um interesting interpretation that um
34:49 a fine line i'll say um so the
34:52 governor's order
34:53 um this does the governor's order
34:55 supersede our ordinance when it comes to
34:56 payment plans
34:58 as long as the governor's order is in
35:00 place
35:02 well it does provide it does provide
35:06 i mean the governor's order is in place
35:08 and it does provide
35:10 for a reasonable payment plan
35:15 to the extent that our ordinance goes
35:16 further than that i think it probably
35:18 can go further than that it can regulate
35:20 a little bit
35:21 it cannot do less than what the governor
35:23 says
35:27 thank you thank you deputy council
35:31 president ray councilmember jim michelle
35:37 uh thank you this is councilmember d
35:39 michelle
35:40 jim i have a couple of questions uh the
35:43 first one is we heard from a lot of
35:45 people who said
35:46 this particular ordinance ordinance does
35:48 not appear
35:50 to have an end date or a termination
35:54 date and when i read through it i
35:57 thought it was pretty clear that there
35:58 were could you
36:00 talk about uh why some people are
36:03 reading that this doesn't have a
36:04 termination date or a uh
36:08 which is just true it says
36:11 there isn't a specific date by which
36:14 this terminates there isn't like
36:16 in the governor's order october 15th the
36:19 governor's order expires
36:20 there is not that in this ordinance but
36:23 what this ordinance does do
36:24 is it defines the
36:28 time period
36:31 during which the prohibitions
36:34 will apply as being the the time period
36:38 during which the governor has declared a
36:41 civil emergency
36:43 so to the extent the governor's civil
36:45 emergency order
36:46 remains in effect this ordinance would
36:49 continue to apply
36:51 because everything is tied to what
36:52 happens during the period of civil
36:55 emergency
36:57 so if the governor's civil emergency
37:00 order was lifted in november
37:02 this ordinance would only apply to
37:04 delinquencies in rent
37:06 payment of late charges all of those
37:08 things that occurred
37:10 while that governor's order was in
37:12 effect
37:13 so there is uh an end date it's just not
37:16 a specific date
37:20 council member michelle do you have a
37:21 follow-up question
37:23 uh well i have another question if
37:24 that's okay yeah
37:26 okay um we heard also from
37:30 um a lot of people about the this
37:33 issue of people just choosing not to
37:36 pay and it was
37:39 it's been my understanding that in order
37:44 receive rental assistance
37:47 or for this particular ordinance also
37:49 people would have to have proof
37:51 that they uh either lost their job
37:54 because
37:55 colbit or they got sick because of kovid
37:58 they had someone in their family they
38:00 had to take care of because of copa they
38:02 would have to prove that
38:03 and if none of those apply then
38:07 this ordinance doesn't apply to those
38:09 situations can you clarify that for me
38:13 yes and i think we need to make maybe a
38:15 distinction here the first
38:17 distinction is that in the provisions of
38:21 this ordinance which provide
38:23 for a defense to the tenant against
38:25 non-payment of rent
38:27 the tenant has to prove in the unlawful
38:30 detainer action
38:31 he has to submit some sort of
38:33 declaration or certification in the
38:35 unlawful detainer action
38:37 that he or she lost their job
38:41 reduced had a substantial reduction in
38:44 etc relating to covet so with respect to
38:48 that
38:48 it's it's really clear with respect to
38:51 the late fees what i heard tonight is
38:53 someone say well that needs to be tied
38:54 to covet as well
38:56 and we could certainly do that the
38:58 governor's order does not
39:00 tie that to covid but we could certainly
39:02 do that
39:03 it's not specific in this ordinance
39:05 however this ordinance is like the
39:07 governor's order in that regard
39:10 thank you thank you council member dave
39:12 michelle council member
39:13 council president hunt
39:19 um thank you two questions which i think
39:22 are
39:23 important for context so the first one
39:26 is it was referenced what other cities
39:29 were doing in public comments and i
39:30 wondered if you could
39:32 reiterate i think we did have an
39:34 overview last time but what is what has
39:36 been done for instance for
39:37 king county unincorporated
39:40 well my my understanding and perhaps
39:43 monica can
39:44 monica negrilla can talk a little bit
39:46 more about that but my understanding is
39:48 that
39:49 king county has imposed an ordinance
39:52 which prohibits uh the uh or which
39:56 essentially raises a defense for the
39:58 tenant
39:58 similar to the first section of this uh
40:01 auburn has done the same thing
40:03 uh and i believe uh that uh
40:07 uh burien i believe has
40:10 passed something similar to this but
40:14 perhaps uh ms degrila can comment as
40:16 well
40:17 sure monica do you want to join the
40:19 conversation
40:21 sure good evening everyone um my
40:24 understanding is from what i read
40:27 in the king county unincorporated
40:30 ordinance i think the main differences
40:33 that i've noticed are regarding the
40:36 payment
40:36 plan i think there are just a few
40:40 um different specific specificities
40:44 such as i think the payment planning
40:46 that ordinance asks for
40:48 one third or four
40:51 landlords to require no more than one
40:53 third of the payment
40:55 in addition to the regular rental
40:57 assistance when they create those
40:58 payment plans
41:00 and then the other detail was related to
41:02 the
41:03 start date being september i believe for
41:07 when the payment plans would start um
41:12 council prison hunt does it answer your
41:13 question thank you thank you yes it does
41:16 and then my
41:16 second part to that question is if there
41:18 are other conversations going on
41:21 regionally that we should be aware of as
41:23 far as what is in the works
41:25 for other cities in addition to the
41:27 examples that were just mentioned
41:31 so in talking with other cities on the
41:34 east side
41:35 and south i know that they are looking
41:37 however no other cities have taken
41:39 action
41:40 at this time i think closest to taking
41:43 an action was the city of kirkland
41:45 however no no specific date
41:48 as of friday was set for that either
41:53 council president hannah will also offer
41:55 this is the mayor that at the mayor's
41:56 meetings that we have through sca on a
41:59 weekly basis during covet
42:01 there is talk from at least the strong
42:04 mayor's group
42:04 of trying to ensure that on the east
42:07 side we have
42:08 more model ordinance that we would be
42:12 able to
42:14 jointly develop and jointly sign on to
42:18 that's just at the mayor's level
42:23 that's president hunt do you have
42:24 additional questions
42:27 thank you i'll move to council member
42:29 hall
42:31 thank you mayor paulie this is
42:32 councilmember zach call uh
42:34 question for our city attorney
42:37 um and you might have just answered
42:41 my question but let me ask it in a
42:43 different way just to make sure
42:45 um i'm interested in the nuance between
42:48 um some of the sections so section one
42:51 talks about unt unpaid rent which became
42:54 due to the civil emergency and then it
42:56 lists out
42:58 what those circumstances are um
43:01 including suffered a loss of employment
43:03 and reduction hours
43:06 have coded caring for a family with
43:08 clothing and
43:09 then section
43:13 2 to late bees
43:17 just says that it's influenced against
43:20 senator rent that became
43:21 dues during the civil emergency so is
43:24 that the same
43:26 or are the circumstances the same by
43:30 which
43:30 section two would apply to a tenant or
43:32 is it different
43:36 it's it's not necessarily the same but
43:39 again this section is very similar to
43:41 what the governor's order provides the
43:43 governor's order doesn't tie
43:44 the late fees issue specifically to the
43:47 covid
43:48 situation either oh okay you did answer
43:52 my question previously
43:54 thank you council member hall council
43:56 member goodman
43:58 thank you mayor paulie councilmember
44:00 goodman here as we've talked about uh
44:02 we talked about last week the
44:05 residential
44:06 landlord landlord-tenant laws is a body
44:08 of law that is
44:10 predominantly preempted by state law
44:14 with very few jurisdictions having their
44:15 own residential landlord
44:17 laws and codes and i wondered if
44:20 there has been any talk rumor
44:24 um suggestions any of that um
44:28 maybe talking to our um city lobbyists
44:31 if there's been any talk about
44:33 um legislature taking up this topic to
44:36 try to have something
44:37 amended in the residential landlord
44:39 tenant act that would give us more
44:41 consistency throughout the
44:42 state wouldn't surprise me if the um
44:46 if we get closer to mid-october that
44:49 there's more of that
44:50 talk um so i'm just wondering if we have
44:53 heard anything
44:54 as of late let's start with
44:58 our city attorney and then give the
45:00 administrator city administrator bob
45:02 quits a chance to weigh in if he has
45:03 additional information
45:05 i have no information on that topic
45:07 perhaps uh city administrator bob kowitz
45:09 does
45:10 thanks members of the council
45:13 no we've been checking with the awc
45:17 association of washington cities
45:18 throughout this i think many communities
45:20 in the state are
45:21 following the governor's lead at this
45:23 point we don't we don't expect the
45:25 legislature to be back in olympia until
45:27 january
45:28 so i don't suspect there will be any
45:30 statewide initiatives on this matter at
45:32 this point
45:34 thank you okay
45:37 it looks like we have worked our way
45:39 through the initial round
45:41 of questions or i'll give it a few
45:44 seconds to see if anybody else wants to
45:46 sign up for questions
45:55 okay um council member oh
46:00 here we go lots of stuff going on here
46:01 council member ray uh would you like to
46:03 make a motion
46:08 would you like to take council member
46:10 hall's question first if i could
46:12 sometimes
46:17 that was fun okay back to deputy council
46:20 president ray
46:23 hi this is chris ray i'd like to move to
46:25 refer agenda bill 8013 to a special
46:28 study session on august 25th
46:30 2020 returning to the full council on or
46:33 before
46:33 september 9 2020.
46:36 could someone indicate in the chat box
46:38 if they would
46:41 raise their hand
46:47 council president hunt
46:52 out all seconds as council president
46:55 um i do not have that motion in front of
46:57 me but it has been moved in second did i
46:59 wonder council deputy council president
47:00 ray if you could read that aloud for
47:02 everybody again
47:03 i'd be happy to i moved to refer agenda
47:05 bill
47:06 8013 to a special study session
47:09 on august 25th 2020 returning to the
47:12 full council on or before
47:13 september 9 2020. thank you oh and there
47:17 it is in the chat box as well
47:19 um deputy council president ray would
47:20 you like to address the motion followed
47:22 by council president hunt
47:25 uh thank you mayor paulie this is chris
47:27 wray um
47:28 i i think that we are given the luxury
47:31 of some time on this by the governor's
47:34 extension of the moratorium until the
47:36 middle of october
47:38 um i i think that this is an important
47:42 piece of work that we're doing i think
47:44 right now people are dealing with great
47:46 deals of uncertainty
47:48 um people are concerned about their
47:50 long-term
47:51 housing prospects they're concerned
47:53 about their long-term economic prospects
47:55 and we also have landlords who are
47:57 concerned about their
47:59 economic prospects and we have many
48:01 people that we need to
48:04 consider as we move this forward and i
48:06 am thankful
48:07 um to the governor governor inslee and
48:09 to council president hunt and mayor
48:11 paulie for
48:12 sending him a letter which i'm sure is
48:13 what um convinced him to extend the
48:15 moratorium
48:17 um so but i think we do have an
48:20 opportunity and i
48:21 i think we need to take advantage of
48:22 this i think this is a
48:24 an agenda bill that we need to push
48:25 forward but i think we need to do it
48:27 uh with more voices at the table and we
48:29 have now that luxury
48:30 and so i would like us to do that
48:33 there's a couple of things
48:34 that are of note to me in my motion one
48:36 is august 25th is not a scheduled uh
48:39 study session so
48:40 that's asking us to do another study
48:42 sessions
48:44 and then the date of september 9th is so
48:47 that we can bring this back and vote on
48:49 it without having to declare an
48:50 emergency that would provide the 30 days
48:53 for it to take effect before the
48:54 governor's moratorium might expire again
48:58 thank you deputy council president ray
48:59 council president hunt
49:05 thank you madam mayor this is council
49:06 president hunt i want to
49:08 speak to for a minute about why
49:11 i think we are considering this agenda
49:14 bill and ordinance in the first place
49:17 and that is
49:19 we received a email last week from a
49:22 resident who was very concerned about
49:24 balancing all the needs that this
49:26 resident had
49:27 and and concern about the virus and
49:31 concern for
49:32 health and well-being of family
49:35 and then uncertainty with the economic
49:38 crisis around coba 19
49:40 and all of that adding up to so much
49:43 anxiety
49:44 and that story actually specifically
49:47 this resident wrote that
49:49 they had not written to their government
49:51 before
49:52 and i think that this story is um it's
49:55 absolutely in our community it's
49:57 absolutely
49:58 happening people are very anxious right
50:00 now there's a lot of uncertainty
50:02 there was a lot of uncertainty about
50:04 whether the eviction moratorium would be
50:06 extended and
50:07 while i am grateful that it was extended
50:10 i think we need to continue to consider
50:13 this um avalanche of evictions
50:16 that is i think coming because when the
50:19 eviction moratorium ends
50:21 people will not all of a sudden
50:22 necessarily be able to
50:24 pay given all of the other economic
50:28 issues around coba 19 right now so i i
50:31 think that we should consider
50:33 as council member ray said i think we do
50:35 have the ability to bring in
50:36 more stakeholders and understand the
50:40 stakeholders perspectives and i think we
50:42 have a responsibility to do that and we
50:43 do have an opportunity to do that
50:45 but i also want to make it really clear
50:48 that for me
50:49 it is very important and a priority
50:52 right now to protect
50:54 those who are most vulnerable in our
50:56 community
50:57 and those that are most vulnerable
50:59 specifically to becoming homeless
51:01 because i think if we do not take
51:03 preventative measures
51:05 to support people to stay in their homes
51:07 right now people don't have a lot of
51:09 options they can't necessarily
51:11 go and find a family member because of
51:15 the
51:16 pandemic that's happening it's a very
51:18 very challenging time
51:20 and homelessness um once a family
51:23 becomes homeless
51:24 that becomes another um huge challenge
51:27 and
51:28 i don't want that to be the challenge um
51:32 i think this is very important i would
51:35 like to
51:36 see resources allocated to addressing
51:39 this
51:39 issue to making sure that landlords and
51:42 tenants are that we have both of those
51:45 stakeholders in the
51:46 in the way that we address this issue
51:48 but i think we need to have resources
51:50 put towards this because
51:52 it is a huge emerging
51:55 looming issue um and
51:59 i also um listens to the way that
52:03 this was presented at the king county
52:06 council meeting
52:07 and king county council member claudia
52:11 balducci talked about
52:12 the need for a glide path once once the
52:15 eviction war trium has ended people need
52:18 be able to have that certainty about how
52:19 they're going to be able to continue to
52:22 stay in their homes
52:23 and i think that having landlords and
52:26 council
52:26 landlords and tenants work together on
52:29 how that's going to work
52:30 is important certainty around a payment
52:33 plan is very important and i think
52:34 that's one of the most important aspects
52:36 of this kind of policy so
52:40 i appreciate the opportunity that we
52:42 have to look at this further
52:44 it's very important and i i
52:48 want to make sure that we take the
52:50 resources put forward the resources to
52:52 support this
52:54 thank you councilmember hall
52:58 thank you mayor paulie this is uh
53:00 councilmember zach hall
53:01 uh i'm going to be sporting uh this
53:03 motion tonight
53:04 um following up on my
53:07 previous comments like i said this sense
53:10 of urgency has
53:11 certainly shifted and we want to be able
53:13 to invite everyone at the table
53:16 in order to make good policy um but in
53:19 addition to ensuring
53:21 everyone's heard i think this also gives
53:23 us time
53:25 to be on the same same page about what
53:27 is in this agenda bill and what isn't
53:29 not just for our tenants and our
53:31 landlords but also
53:32 us here on on council um i read a lot
53:36 of emails that came in from individuals
53:38 who i think
53:39 would probably be very happy to know
53:41 that the current bill actually
53:43 does address most of their concerns um
53:46 there were a few things i think very
53:48 much are worthy of discussion in
53:50 the pursuit of good policy
53:53 but i want to make sure we're all on the
53:54 same page about some of the
53:56 inconsistencies i noticed between
53:58 those emails and the current policy
54:01 proposal
54:02 um and you know also just recognizing
54:05 that i
54:06 i'm seeing this as a fair compromise
54:08 between with positives for renters and
54:11 property owners
54:12 so that could also mean that i'm in a
54:14 bubble and i'm just seeing this through
54:15 my own bias
54:16 which i think taking a step back now
54:19 that we have some breathing room is a
54:20 good idea because of that i think it'd
54:22 be a good idea for our next touch to be
54:24 able to touch
54:26 on all the points that were emailed to
54:28 us in comparison to our current agenda
54:31 bill so that way we have a deep level of
54:32 understanding
54:34 uh there and i'm sure there's even more
54:35 that we haven't even thought about
54:37 and that's you know what's so great
54:39 about
54:40 bringing people together and talking so
54:43 those are my comments and i'll be
54:44 supporting this motion this evening
54:46 thanks
54:47 thank you councilmember hall
54:48 councilmember t michelle
54:50 i'll be very brief because i agree with
54:53 everything that
54:54 council president hunt and councilmember
54:56 hall just
54:57 said um i could have voted yes for this
55:01 motion tonight but i think if we delay
55:04 uh we're going to get a better ordinance
55:06 and
55:07 it'll be a fair ordinance as people have
55:10 asked us to do
55:11 i also think it'll give us time to
55:13 communicate
55:14 with um those people who spent the time
55:18 to communicate with us this afternoon
55:20 and i think there was uh
55:22 misunderstandings
55:23 about how that the law applies or would
55:26 be applied
55:27 and i think this gives us an opportunity
55:29 to talk talk that through
55:31 and hear if there are any further
55:32 concerns and so i will be supporting
55:35 this motion
55:36 now but i think we're on the right track
55:38 i just think that we can make it a
55:40 little bit better
55:41 thanks thank you i
55:45 am waiting a few seconds to see if any
55:47 other council members would like to
55:49 raise their hand through the chat
55:50 function
55:56 i also wanted to check in with city
55:59 administrator bob kowitz we can do it
56:01 before the vote or after the vote but
56:04 just
56:04 to verify that the maybe we'll do it
56:07 after the vote just to verify that the
56:09 expectation is clearly understood
56:11 of what is coming back and what work
56:13 needs to be done
56:15 saying any comments um we'll go back to
56:18 the motion which was to refer
56:20 ab-8013 to a special study session on
56:23 august 25th
56:24 2020 returning to the full council on or
56:27 before september 9
56:28 2020. and i'm going to turn it over to
56:31 our city clerk for a roll call vote
56:34 yes and council president hunt is
56:36 beginning the vote this evening
56:38 so council president hunt aye
56:42 council member martz aye
56:45 deputy council president ray aye
56:49 council member walsh aye
56:52 councilmember d michelle hi
56:55 councilmember goodman
56:57 aye councilmember hall aye
57:00 at seven eyes zero nays thank you that
57:03 passage unanimously i'd like to get
57:05 city administrator bob kowitz to provide
57:08 some comments and feedback on what he
57:10 heard and what he thinks the
57:11 expectations
57:12 are so that we are prepared for that
57:14 study session
57:16 thank you mr alex yes thank you madam
57:18 mayor
57:19 um well i think the council has given us
57:21 a tall order and that is to come up with
57:23 statewide housing policy
57:26 and so that's going to be difficult
57:29 it's sad that we've not been able to
57:31 find other communities within king
57:33 county
57:34 that have raised this issue to the
57:35 highest level so your staff i think will
57:37 be looking
57:39 to our neighbors around king county our
57:41 neighbors throughout the state of
57:42 washington
57:44 to see if there is a plan i think as the
57:47 council president said
57:48 a lie path we ourselves in the city of
57:51 issaquah cannot solve
57:53 the housing problems of the of the
57:55 region or the state
57:56 uh but you know your staff will spend
57:59 its
58:00 uh august days of trying to sort through
58:03 this the best of our ability
58:05 and uh we'll we'll reach out to uh
58:08 the folks that we've heard from the the
58:10 landlord association hopefully will be
58:12 a willing partner in these discussions
58:14 but again we're going to be looking for
58:16 other communities
58:17 to join us uh because i think the burden
58:20 should not be solely on the city council
58:22 or this community to solve what is not
58:24 only a statewide problem but a
58:25 nationwide problem
58:27 so we're going to be looking for some
58:28 help in the next few weeks
58:30 um let me ask clarifying question
58:33 is it a possibility then to
58:36 [Music]
58:37 when the word resources is used to look
58:41 providing supplemental non-staff
58:44 resources to research and get the
58:46 information that the council wants and
58:49 um because i if we don't have the staff
58:51 capacity to do it is there another way
58:53 to do this
58:56 not easily um i think you know we will
58:58 we will look to our neighbors again
59:00 um it is remarkable to me that
59:04 most of our neighbor communities have
59:05 simply said well we trust
59:07 the state government and the federal
59:08 government and everything will be okay
59:10 um given the enormity of the issue that
59:14 is a curious thing i think many
59:15 communities are still trying to figure
59:17 out how to balance
59:18 their own city budget with with
59:21 resources being depleted
59:22 and the issues there there are so many
59:26 issues that
59:27 local governments around washington
59:28 state and around the country are being
59:30 asked to do
59:31 i think many of our neighbors have said
59:33 uh this is
59:34 this is just a big one we're trying to
59:36 make sure how can we pay our employees
59:38 and continue to maintain basic city
59:40 services so i guess
59:41 one good thing is is that we took action
59:43 early on
59:45 to to grapple with some of these issues
59:48 but
59:49 you know your staff is absolutely
59:50 stretched and to ask
59:52 you know one or two staff members to who
59:55 have tried for the last several weeks
59:57 to get their colleagues in other
59:59 communities and in king county
1:00:00 interested
1:00:01 more aggressively in this issue and have
1:00:03 largely fallen
1:00:05 i hate to say deaf ears but i think ears
1:00:08 that say
1:00:08 we have lots of other priorities in our
1:00:10 community we're trying to balance so
1:00:12 um madam mayor members of the council i
1:00:14 don't mean to be a naysayer i don't mean
1:00:17 set a bad tone but i also want to set an
1:00:19 appropriate expectation
1:00:21 that we ourselves in the city of
1:00:23 issaquah can only do so much on this
1:00:25 issue
1:00:25 we will do our best over the next few
1:00:28 weeks
1:00:29 to do that but it's been it's been
1:00:33 difficult several months and we will
1:00:34 continue to work diligently to
1:00:37 bring the council the information that
1:00:38 it's looking for so
1:00:40 i appreciate your comments the reason i
1:00:42 asked about external resources and even
1:00:44 if this council wanted to pay
1:00:46 additional funding for external
1:00:48 resources is two cities have done what
1:00:50 we've done
1:00:51 so we've already cut 6.5 to 7 million
1:00:54 worth of expenses those are jobs those
1:00:56 are gone others have not
1:00:58 and so if the council would agree that
1:01:00 additional resources could mean
1:01:02 really just throwing this problem back
1:01:04 out to the cities
1:01:05 and asking those that have staff to
1:01:08 provide information and pull together
1:01:10 would be great
1:01:11 and so i kind of like to entertain that
1:01:13 conversation with council right now when
1:01:15 we use the word resources
1:01:16 could it be that we just put an
1:01:18 invitation out to others to come to a
1:01:20 table and talk about it
1:01:21 and that we not manage it with our staff
1:01:23 they still have staff
1:01:24 we do not and i'm going to start with
1:01:26 council
1:01:28 president hunt
1:01:33 well um thank you madam mayor i was
1:01:35 going to make a
1:01:36 comment um to the comments that were
1:01:39 provided by
1:01:40 the city administrator if that's okay
1:01:43 directly okay so i think that
1:01:46 part of
1:01:50 i think that it is a regional issue
1:01:52 right now housing stability is
1:01:54 definitely a regional issue it's not
1:01:55 something unique but
1:01:56 to us we have a responsibility to
1:02:00 to work on finding solutions for
1:02:03 our residents and i
1:02:06 would like to also use this time
1:02:09 personally as i
1:02:10 as i mentioned i think this is a
1:02:12 priority i think this is very important
1:02:15 and so so
1:02:18 i would like to work with other you know
1:02:20 city council members and i can do that
1:02:22 and would like to reach out and
1:02:24 see what other cities are thinking um
1:02:26 and what
1:02:27 we could work on together um so i would
1:02:30 be interested in that sort of
1:02:32 collaboration and on taking on some of
1:02:35 as well i know that we have council
1:02:37 members in different regional groups who
1:02:38 have information about what's happening
1:02:41 at different levels and different
1:02:42 options as well and so i think we
1:02:44 can bring all of that information i
1:02:46 think we don't need to
1:02:48 only rely on our city staff
1:02:51 resources i think we can also have
1:02:53 conversations um
1:02:54 council members council members and in
1:02:58 and in our regional um our regional
1:03:01 responsibilities as well
1:03:03 sure uh just a question on that would
1:03:05 you be considering something like taking
1:03:06 a three-person
1:03:08 uh council member task force and sort of
1:03:10 hashing through this like was done with
1:03:13 um commit oh i can't remember what we
1:03:16 call them real procedure
1:03:18 uh justin suggested don't need an answer
1:03:20 but something that could get thrown out
1:03:22 uh council member marks followed by
1:03:24 council member hall
1:03:25 thank you madam mayor this is council
1:03:27 member mark uh just hoping
1:03:29 that as we talked about where we might
1:03:31 look for assistance outside the city
1:03:34 i'm hoping that arch could be involved
1:03:36 in the conversation
1:03:37 um they certainly know what's going on
1:03:41 regionally and even within our city
1:03:44 uh they've been a good long-term partner
1:03:47 and know the lay of the land for low
1:03:49 income and
1:03:51 affordable housing if king county uh
1:03:54 has information that's available and
1:03:57 finally we've already heard from some
1:03:59 housing ngos obviously they have
1:04:02 a particular point of view but i would
1:04:05 imagine both housing ngos
1:04:08 and landlord ngos might be able
1:04:11 to you know a phone call a couple of
1:04:14 phone calls would at least
1:04:16 um uh provide some corner points
1:04:19 um for conversation so i'm hoping those
1:04:22 will all be resources that'll be
1:04:24 force multipliers for us thank you thank
1:04:26 you council member marks council member
1:04:33 thank you mayor paulie this is uh
1:04:34 councilmember zach hall
1:04:36 um i guess just first uh
1:04:40 to comment on the administrator's
1:04:41 comments um
1:04:43 i see a really um
1:04:47 i guess in my eyes a clear first step is
1:04:49 just to
1:04:50 review the questions and concerns that
1:04:52 have been emailed to us whether they be
1:04:54 the rental housing association within
1:04:56 landlords
1:04:58 next to our ordinance because i think a
1:05:03 of those questions and concerns can be
1:05:05 cleared up
1:05:06 fairly quickly and then
1:05:10 there are less holes and then there are
1:05:12 just a few things that we really need to
1:05:13 look at
1:05:14 with the region's doing and i recognize
1:05:16 how difficult that is being that
1:05:18 other folks aren't doing it um i was
1:05:20 also going to um
1:05:22 mention arts um so kudos counts my
1:05:25 remarks
1:05:26 another is you know i serve as our
1:05:27 representative on the regional
1:05:29 affordable housing committee
1:05:30 and the staff for that committee are
1:05:32 primarily king county
1:05:34 and shoot we're going through this
1:05:36 report another
1:05:37 entity called the housing
1:05:39 inter-jurisdictional
1:05:43 something what another but um they have
1:05:45 always
1:05:46 during every meeting said lean on us you
1:05:49 know like they're here
1:05:50 for for our support so i will put them
1:05:52 in contact with you
1:05:53 and with monica knows the staff there
1:05:56 and see how they can assist us
1:06:00 thank you councilmember hall i'm not
1:06:01 sure that the administration has
1:06:03 monica's availability to coordinate
1:06:04 that's something we're all going to have
1:06:06 to discuss
1:06:06 because in order for her to do it
1:06:07 something will have to come off i do
1:06:09 like the brainstorming i do like getting
1:06:11 the list of resources i'm keeping a list
1:06:13 and we have council member goodman
1:06:18 thank you madame councilmember goodman
1:06:20 here um
1:06:21 my comments will sound familiar uh this
1:06:24 isn't a regional issue it's not a city
1:06:26 issue it's a statewide issue um and so i
1:06:29 think that
1:06:29 um the other folks that
1:06:33 need to be at a table and we need to be
1:06:35 talking to um are our legislators
1:06:38 and finding out uh what um
1:06:42 what the thought is about something
1:06:44 coming forward um
1:06:45 in the next session and i
1:06:48 i really do think that this is something
1:06:50 that needs to be dealt with by the
1:06:51 legislature
1:06:52 and so i'm hoping that uh we get those
1:06:54 conversations going and maybe it's
1:06:56 maybe it's more letter writing anyway
1:07:00 i'm going to support the motion to put
1:07:02 this on august 25th thank you
1:07:04 thank you councilmember goodman i
1:07:06 believe it's count a deputy council
1:07:08 president ray next followed by council
1:07:09 member tim phil
1:07:11 thank you mayor paulie this is chris
1:07:12 trey i have a couple of thoughts one
1:07:14 is not to be uh labeled as the one who
1:07:18 always wants to create a council task
1:07:20 team but i think this is a
1:07:22 this is an opportunity for the council
1:07:24 actually to roll up our sleeves and help
1:07:26 them do some of this work and i think we
1:07:27 could create a task team that could
1:07:29 offload some of this work and also
1:07:32 allow the council to take ownership of
1:07:34 this ordinance in a
1:07:35 in a much more tangible way and to reach
1:07:37 out to
1:07:38 our colleagues in other regional
1:07:40 committees reach out
1:07:42 to the county reach out to other cities
1:07:44 those are relationships that we
1:07:45 should have and we could leverage so if
1:07:48 it would be the will of the body i think
1:07:50 that would be
1:07:51 a interesting way to go the other
1:07:54 point i wanted to make is i um agree
1:07:56 with council
1:07:58 remember goodman that this is a
1:07:59 statewide issue and quite honestly i
1:08:01 think that the governor's
1:08:02 um moratorium addresses most of the
1:08:06 issues that we've
1:08:07 we've tried to address and my my belief
1:08:10 is that we are pursuing this
1:08:12 ordinance because we wanted to be able
1:08:15 to provide a level of protection the
1:08:17 event that the
1:08:18 governor should not um and so the other
1:08:21 thing i think
1:08:21 would be very helpful is if we could
1:08:23 dispatch our lobbyists to
1:08:25 make sure that the governor understands
1:08:26 the importance of keeping this in place
1:08:29 as long as possible so that we're not in
1:08:32 a position where we're having to
1:08:34 put our own backstop in place
1:08:39 thank you thank you thank you deputy
1:08:40 council president ray and if it hasn't
1:08:42 been brought up there is a rumor and it
1:08:44 is just a rumor that the federal
1:08:46 government may do something as well
1:08:49 maybe even out to the spring
1:08:50 many moving pieces this is covid welcome
1:08:53 to covet
1:08:54 uh i do not see oh councilmember t
1:08:57 michelle sorry
1:08:58 yes i do one more okay thank you um
1:09:01 i want a second uh councilman ray's idea
1:09:04 of having a
1:09:06 team task force and i'd be happy to be
1:09:08 on that and
1:09:10 of course i am sitting on the east side
1:09:12 human services
1:09:13 uh forum uh as your representative so
1:09:16 there again is another group of
1:09:20 really good resources for us when it
1:09:23 comes to housing issues
1:09:24 so i think all of those are great ideas
1:09:26 we need
1:09:28 we need some coordination to figure out
1:09:30 how we're going to do that but
1:09:31 i would be glad to serve on that one
1:09:34 so what i'm hearing in terms of
1:09:37 resources that i've summed up is that
1:09:38 there are
1:09:39 non-profit partners out there such as
1:09:42 arts there's
1:09:44 resources at king county housing groups
1:09:46 landlord groups
1:09:48 potential council member task force
1:09:50 using our lobbyists
1:09:51 using our attorney to review concerns
1:09:53 that uh were mentioned in correspondence
1:09:56 and by public comment this evening next
1:09:58 to our
1:09:59 proposed ordinance also that lobbying
1:10:02 state legislatures lobbying at the
1:10:03 federal level
1:10:04 potentially letter writings those are
1:10:06 all the ideas that kind of got thrown on
1:10:07 the table
1:10:08 so um who wants to take a stab
1:10:11 at um well let me ask the city
1:10:13 administrator if there's any questions
1:10:15 on that and then
1:10:16 some sort of wrap up of what we think
1:10:18 next steps are
1:10:21 the administrator do you have any
1:10:22 comments are we ready to just go to next
1:10:28 steps
1:10:30 okay i'm seeing a comment from
1:10:32 councilmember goodman
1:10:34 and a comment from council president
1:10:35 hunt councilmember goodman
1:10:37 i just wanted to say i i spaced out said
1:10:39 i would support it i already voted on it
1:10:46 it's already late in the week it's
1:10:47 already monday sorry nobody nobody even
1:10:49 poked you in the chat box for that one
1:10:51 uh council president hunt thank you this
1:10:54 counts president hunt i just
1:10:56 wanted to say that if we do as a council
1:10:59 think that the task force is a good idea
1:11:00 i would also volunteer for that
1:11:03 so what i'm hearing is that a council
1:11:05 member hall on the regional
1:11:07 affordable housing commission council
1:11:10 member g michelle on the east side human
1:11:11 services
1:11:12 forum and council president are thinking
1:11:14 of forming an ad hoc and
1:11:16 i am not really sure how to do that on
1:11:18 camera but it sounds like a great idea
1:11:19 and there's three hands in the air
1:11:21 is there anyone else that is interested
1:11:23 in joining
1:11:24 this this group where we would then have
1:11:27 to pick uh
1:11:28 uh clerk is now showing up to tell us
1:11:30 what we can and cannot do
1:11:32 so yes i would just like to comment that
1:11:35 if the council's interested in forming
1:11:37 an ad hoc group that i'd recommend it be
1:11:39 formalized
1:11:40 by motion and that that motion could
1:11:43 specify
1:11:44 um the desired outcome of the group uh
1:11:47 when they'd be returning to the council
1:11:49 and the members who would be
1:11:51 a part of it that sounds great um
1:11:54 is there a council member prepared to
1:11:56 make a motion
1:12:00 the other option we could do if it
1:12:03 is to take a five-minute break and we
1:12:06 may be able to work up a motion
1:12:08 that somebody can present what is your
1:12:10 preference take a five minute break
1:12:13 we're up for five minutes thank you
1:12:54 i called a meeting back to order from
1:12:57 our break
1:12:58 we are returning and council is
1:13:01 considering
1:13:02 an accident that they would like to take
1:13:03 in relation to resourcing
1:13:05 um this issue
1:13:09 is there someone i see that the council
1:13:11 president has a motion to make
1:13:16 thank you this is council president hunt
1:13:18 and i i will
1:13:19 um make a slight change to the motion
1:13:22 that was proposed if that was okay
1:13:24 so my proposed motion is i moved to
1:13:27 create an ad hoc committee to review
1:13:29 ab-8013
1:13:31 and propose housing stability strategies
1:13:34 comprised of council members day
1:13:35 michelle all
1:13:37 and hunt reporting to the full council
1:13:39 at a special study session on august
1:13:41 and returning to the full council on or
1:13:43 before september 9th 2020.
1:13:47 is there a second i'm looking in the
1:13:49 chat box for a hand
1:13:52 that's a member walsh
1:13:56 this is councilmember walsh and i have
1:13:57 my fingers on the wrong keys
1:14:00 i would like to second that
1:14:04 thank you it's been moved and seconded
1:14:06 to create an ad hoc committee to review
1:14:08 ab013
1:14:09 and propose housing stability strategies
1:14:13 comprised of council members b michelle
1:14:16 and hunt reporting to the full council
1:14:18 at a special study session on august
1:14:19 25th and returning to the full council
1:14:21 on or before september 9
1:14:22 2020 is there discussion
1:14:35 okay thank you uh council president hunt
1:14:38 for a comment
1:14:40 um thank you this is council president
1:14:41 hunt i i
1:14:43 appreciate the opportunity to um
1:14:45 participate in this
1:14:47 ad hoc committee and i think as i've
1:14:51 several times this evening i think this
1:14:52 is one of the most important and
1:14:54 challenging issues we are going to have
1:14:56 to deal with um as a lingering effect of
1:14:58 coba 19 on our
1:15:00 on our residents and um i also
1:15:03 changed the slightly changed the wording
1:15:07 of the proposed motion to be more
1:15:09 specific than just eviction because i
1:15:11 think there are also challenges
1:15:12 around housing stability
1:15:17 such as that if you begin eviction
1:15:19 proceedings that goes on your record and
1:15:21 so i think considering all of those
1:15:23 and even if you aren't ultimately
1:15:25 evicted and so eviction
1:15:27 eviction prevention seems a bit narrow
1:15:30 and i think we can consider
1:15:31 housing stability as um that's really
1:15:34 the goal is um as i see it as housing
1:15:38 stability
1:15:38 um for all for
1:15:42 to address all the challenges um that
1:15:44 renters have right now around coba 19
1:15:46 and financial impacts
1:15:48 thank you council president hunt um
1:15:50 council member goodman
1:15:53 uh thank you my comment is just that i
1:15:56 hear you know the challenges around um
1:15:58 and around um tenants um but i also
1:16:02 would urge those working on this to
1:16:04 think about the challenges uh regarding
1:16:06 the landlords
1:16:08 i think it's far too easy for folks to
1:16:12 not remember that landlords are finding
1:16:15 this fair challenging
1:16:16 too and they have mortgages
1:16:20 to pay um and um all of the expenses
1:16:23 that go with it all the things that
1:16:24 we've heard about in the
1:16:26 um in the email comments and in the
1:16:28 public comments those are all important
1:16:30 and so i really do not want this to be a
1:16:32 one-sided strategy
1:16:34 so um go forth and do good work thank
1:16:38 thank you councilmember goodman council
1:16:39 member hall
1:16:41 thanks mayor paulie's councilmember zach
1:16:43 call uh real quick
1:16:44 um good comment councilmember
1:16:48 uh goodman uh and to that point we have
1:16:52 consider the viability and um
1:16:56 economic health of our landlords too if
1:16:59 they're not able to pay
1:17:00 their mortgages and uh their insurance
1:17:04 and then their property taxes if they're
1:17:06 not even paying property taxes then
1:17:07 the services that come back around to
1:17:09 help tenants
1:17:11 are affected too so it's full circle so
1:17:14 we've gotta work
1:17:15 i'm committed to looking at this from
1:17:18 from a large lens and i uh my comment
1:17:21 that i just wanted to say was
1:17:22 please lean on me i know i know you're
1:17:26 struggling with uh staff ability to be
1:17:29 able to support council needs so
1:17:30 um i will do whatever i need to with
1:17:36 council member hall this that's very
1:17:38 nice this is the direction the city's
1:17:39 been heading for a while uh
1:17:40 why we are starting to occupy regional
1:17:42 seats and why we are starting to work
1:17:44 with other cities and so that we make
1:17:46 we make this work out together uh
1:17:49 council member oh
1:17:50 no more council members in the chat box
1:17:52 i'm going to go back to the motion
1:17:55 motion is to create an ad hoc committee
1:17:56 to review ab-8013 and propose housing
1:17:59 stability strategies
1:18:00 comprised of council members b michelle
1:18:03 hall and hunt
1:18:05 reporting to the full council at a
1:18:06 special study session on august 25th
1:18:08 and returning to the full council on or
1:18:10 before september 9 2020
1:18:12 all those in favor will do a uh sorry do
1:18:14 roll call vote
1:18:16 it's only been five months i'll get
1:18:18 there at some point should be clear
1:18:20 beginning with council member marks
1:18:22 council member marks
1:18:23 thank you deputy council president ray
1:18:28 council member walsh aye
1:18:31 councilmember d michelle aye
1:18:34 council member goodman aye councilmember
1:18:38 aye council president hunt
1:18:41 aye that's 7i zero nays
1:18:45 thank you that passes unanimously i'm
1:18:48 gonna go
1:18:49 back and look at our agenda for this
1:18:52 evening
1:18:54 uh so thank you for all of that uh
1:18:57 we are into id 0735 the next item on our
1:19:01 agenda which is the virtual
1:19:02 meeting check-in this item was discussed
1:19:05 at the july 20th
1:19:07 city council meeting there's no formal
1:19:09 action being requested staff will make a
1:19:11 brief presentation followed by an
1:19:13 opportunity for council input and
1:19:14 direction and i'd like to invite city
1:19:16 clerk tina eggers to introduce this item
1:19:19 hi thank you clerk
1:19:26 and tina i think we're having some um
1:19:28 audio
1:19:29 issues not sure if your headset is
1:19:34 working
1:19:46 every other word
1:20:02 is that clearer worst
1:20:06 thing okay let me try
1:20:09 going on
1:20:13 we're losing you
1:20:25 all right any better with that two
1:20:28 thumbs up okay
1:20:29 thank you you got it well as you can see
1:20:32 i'm in a different location today
1:20:34 and so thank you for your patience um
1:20:37 you know earlier this year we pivoted to
1:20:41 the copic 19 emergency public health
1:20:44 recommendations and we began to
1:20:46 modify how these council meetings were
1:20:47 held parameters that were set by the
1:20:50 governor continued to evolve
1:20:52 and we quickly shifted to planning
1:20:56 testing and implementation efforts this
1:20:58 allowed the council you
1:21:00 to continue its business and allowed our
1:21:02 emerging issues
1:21:04 needing to be addressed by boards
1:21:06 commissions and task force to be
1:21:07 conducted
1:21:08 i want to say thank you thank you to the
1:21:09 mayor thank you council thank you to
1:21:11 administration and staff
1:21:14 you know i.t communications um deputy
1:21:17 city clerk
1:21:18 everyone who participated helped um
1:21:21 helped us with the success and you know
1:21:24 it was as seamless as it could be
1:21:26 even despite some of our um audio
1:21:29 hiccups
1:21:29 but thank you again so some of the data
1:21:32 that we have
1:21:33 let me look at some stats here
1:21:37 that i wanted to share is we've hosted
1:21:40 50 virtual meetings none of which needed
1:21:43 to be cancelled or rescheduled
1:21:44 due to technical or quorum issues of the
1:21:48 50 virtual meetings
1:21:49 10 were community engagement or other
1:21:52 programming
1:21:53 17 were boards commissions or task force
1:21:56 meetings
1:21:56 and 23 were council related of your 23
1:22:00 council meetings
1:22:02 you've held 56 hours of meetings
1:22:05 and heard 52 public comments and
1:22:08 you've received extensive comments
1:22:10 submitted by email i think these numbers
1:22:12 are really impressive
1:22:14 and they're worth noting so i wanted to
1:22:16 take time to do that
1:22:18 uh you asked what uh what we'd like to
1:22:20 share that's working well from the
1:22:22 clerk's
1:22:22 perspective and there's several we have
1:22:25 a secure platform which is important to
1:22:27 our network safety
1:22:28 and to date our meetings have been free
1:22:30 of any harmful
1:22:32 unwanted interruptions by outside
1:22:34 attendees
1:22:35 noticing we've made best efforts to
1:22:38 ensure that the public is informed about
1:22:40 how your meetings are held
1:22:41 how to participate and we offer a
1:22:44 variety of
1:22:45 alternative ways to watch or provide
1:22:48 public comment
1:22:50 content meeting materials and
1:22:51 presentations are posted as part of
1:22:53 the packet you're meeting facilitation
1:22:56 and use of chat
1:22:58 as well um specifically as a procedural
1:23:02 and your use of roll call are working
1:23:04 great many other jurisdictions
1:23:07 are aren't doing these elements well so
1:23:10 i wanted to again take note of that
1:23:13 so what's not working well or could be
1:23:15 improved from our perspective
1:23:18 i can tell you it takes a lot of
1:23:19 resources to pull off a successful
1:23:21 meeting
1:23:21 and we want to be thoughtful in the
1:23:23 tools used
1:23:24 and how they're executed so in doing so
1:23:28 we found some frustration working within
1:23:30 certain constraints of the system such
1:23:32 controlling sound video and the limited
1:23:35 functionality
1:23:37 where um such as where individuals are
1:23:40 seated
1:23:40 at the meeting
1:23:44 at times we can encounter some
1:23:45 background sound issues
1:23:48 maybe difficulty hearing others due to
1:23:50 various use
1:23:51 speaker or microphones but that can be
1:23:54 resolved
1:23:55 through ways of ensuring that you have
1:23:57 the equipment that you need
1:23:58 and of course we'll be listening this
1:24:00 evening to your conversation
1:24:02 to hear if there are any other equipment
1:24:05 needs that might be mentioned and then
1:24:08 lastly we've heard from
1:24:10 a couple individuals in the community
1:24:11 who've expressed frustration
1:24:13 with not providing public comment period
1:24:16 after each agenda item for study
1:24:17 sessions
1:24:18 and while internally we appreciated the
1:24:21 opportunity to have a
1:24:22 consolidated approach to public comment
1:24:25 you certainly can modify this
1:24:27 we'll be listening to your dialogue this
1:24:28 evening and
1:24:30 we'll make changes if directed and then
1:24:32 finally you asked
1:24:34 where we what issues
1:24:38 should or might be addressed we
1:24:41 found two we recommend that some
1:24:44 language should be added to your rules
1:24:46 that address
1:24:47 your attendance at virtual meetings
1:24:49 particularly during this emergency
1:24:51 health or public safety situations and
1:24:54 if there's a desire to make significant
1:24:56 changes to the virtual meeting format
1:25:00 then we might recommend investing excuse
1:25:02 me investing further
1:25:04 in the webex platform and that would
1:25:07 require financial commitment
1:25:10 and that was it as far as my opening
1:25:12 comments you have the deputy city clerk
1:25:15 on the line as well
1:25:16 uh we're available to answer questions
1:25:18 and we of course look forward to hearing
1:25:20 your discussion this evening mayor
1:25:22 paulie thank you tisha and tina for
1:25:24 being here
1:25:25 this little very helpful um
1:25:28 i'm going to propose and just look for
1:25:31 head knots a format for this
1:25:33 conversation this evening i think going
1:25:35 to general questions
1:25:36 next would be great and then after all
1:25:39 of the questions have been asked
1:25:41 before getting into deliberations i
1:25:43 would like to go through the email that
1:25:45 was circulated on sunday
1:25:47 and make sure that council feels that
1:25:49 the questions that were posed by council
1:25:51 member goodman
1:25:52 and member d michelle have been
1:25:54 thoroughly vetted or if there's
1:25:56 additional information on those then if
1:25:58 that's okay
1:25:58 give me a little head nod and that's how
1:26:00 we'll go through this conversation
1:26:02 got it thank you lots of nodding heads
1:26:04 let's go to
1:26:05 um council member
1:26:09 marks thank you madam mayor this is
1:26:11 council member mark
1:26:12 um i just have a question for the
1:26:14 clerk's office
1:26:15 um in talking about the technologies
1:26:18 that we have
1:26:19 open to us have we looked at zoom gov
1:26:24 as different from regular zoom i use
1:26:26 zoom gov
1:26:27 at my work because we deal with secure
1:26:31 contracts and have found it to be
1:26:33 extremely useful and i use it
1:26:35 probably about eight hours a day so
1:26:38 just just wondering thanks
1:26:45 um tina is that something
1:26:48 you need to call a friend for this is
1:26:50 i.t and it costs money or is that
1:26:52 something you can answer tonight
1:26:53 uh we did explore zoom um in the
1:26:57 early earlier this year uh we
1:27:00 initially stayed away from zoom overall
1:27:03 from a security perspective
1:27:05 but sounds like you
1:27:08 have found a solution that may be
1:27:10 different
1:27:11 so i don't see john traeger on the line
1:27:15 we certainly will and could ask that
1:27:18 question of him
1:27:19 i'm here actually oh hi john oh one of
1:27:22 our accounts that says i t
1:27:24 there you go john yes stop
1:27:27 so well at the time you're talking about
1:27:29 march 3rd zoom was not there yet
1:27:32 obviously they've made some rapid
1:27:33 changes and they're expensive
1:27:35 so the cost for zoom government probably
1:27:37 is approaching what we were talking
1:27:39 about
1:27:40 doing with increasing what we're
1:27:41 spending with
1:27:43 webex to kind of meet feature parity if
1:27:47 you will with breakout rooms and that
1:27:48 kind of stuff
1:27:52 council member mars does that answer
1:27:54 your question
1:27:56 um i think so our company is very cost
1:27:59 conscious so i would definitely
1:28:00 make sure i'm sure we're using the least
1:28:03 expensive option that meets our security
1:28:05 needs
1:28:05 but thanks thank you councilmember mart
1:28:08 councilmember goodman
1:28:11 uh thank you mayor councilmember goodman
1:28:12 here um
1:28:14 tina you raised it first so i'll follow
1:28:17 up on it
1:28:17 the question about having um public
1:28:20 comment after
1:28:21 each agenda item at uh study sessions
1:28:24 which is what we do in our
1:28:25 in-person meetings or have done in the
1:28:27 past um
1:28:28 can you talk a little bit about um
1:28:32 what if any challenges there are for
1:28:35 and um i think
1:28:38 i think um more than just i am
1:28:41 interested
1:28:41 in that the council member d michelle
1:28:43 also asked a question about it
1:28:45 and i've talked to several members of
1:28:47 the public who are interested in that
1:28:49 but i would like to
1:28:49 know a little bit more about the
1:28:51 challenges and um
1:28:53 just just more about it thanks
1:28:56 sure and uh our deputy city clerk has
1:28:59 anything to add to my comments
1:29:01 uh you're she's welcome to uh um
1:29:04 come on camera and share her thoughts uh
1:29:07 i can tell you that
1:29:08 um if we're simply looking to do
1:29:14 [Music]
1:29:16 maybe a less informal or
1:29:19 less formal way of collecting those
1:29:21 comments after each item
1:29:23 i think we can be successful at that but
1:29:26 if we're looking for sign up sheets
1:29:28 it's sort of where the if your agenda
1:29:31 items start getting
1:29:33 high interest and high participation
1:29:37 i think the sign up sheets are more
1:29:39 effective
1:29:41 and that just would take some time and
1:29:44 energy and
1:29:45 currently our sign up sheets are posted
1:29:48 at the start of the month
1:29:50 and this would require us to do some
1:29:52 sign up sheets after the agenda's posted
1:29:56 there's a delay but you certainly could
1:29:59 continue in the way that you are and
1:30:01 have audience comments at the start
1:30:03 and then maybe make an announcement and
1:30:06 notice on the agenda that
1:30:08 in addition to this time you you could
1:30:12 each item up for for comment by others
1:30:17 thank you that's a great question
1:30:18 councilmember goodman i know it's one
1:30:20 that we are definitely going to talk
1:30:21 about tonight
1:30:22 and for those that have participated on
1:30:24 large remote meetings
1:30:26 it's an interesting concept on how you
1:30:28 manage who gets to speak and when they
1:30:30 get to speak so
1:30:31 it's interesting next up is council
1:30:35 member hall
1:30:38 thank you mayor paulie this is
1:30:39 councilmember zach hall a clarifying
1:30:41 question for
1:30:42 clerk hagers you mentioned rules added
1:30:46 to our council policies on um the
1:30:49 attendance of virtual meetings so you're
1:30:51 referring to
1:30:52 like community meetings where
1:30:55 we might run into issues with more than
1:30:57 three council members
1:30:59 where if it was in the public we would
1:31:00 just stand on opposite sides of
1:31:05 the room but it's hard to do that in
1:31:06 like a zoom room
1:31:09 uh no i wasn't addressing that
1:31:12 that's a different sort of quorum opma
1:31:15 issue and
1:31:16 um it's clear that you would need to be
1:31:19 limited to three council members or less
1:31:21 and if a fourth arriving council member
1:31:24 showed up they would need to depart just
1:31:26 as you would with an
1:31:26 in-person meeting that's very different
1:31:29 than like a community celebration
1:31:31 uh the comment about rules for remote
1:31:34 would be
1:31:35 um clear some some clarity in your rules
1:31:38 and regs that just says we recognize
1:31:40 that you have the ability to meet
1:31:42 remotely
1:31:44 when situations require it or when it's
1:31:48 health or public safety are at risk
1:31:51 right now
1:31:51 your rules are silent on it and there
1:31:54 was an emphasis
1:31:55 on being physically present at your
1:31:58 meeting so we want to just uh
1:32:00 provide some clarification there thank
1:32:02 you very much
1:32:03 sorry for the i didn't see that
1:32:06 the only other thing i was upset that
1:32:08 webex wouldn't let us change our
1:32:10 background but that's probably for
1:32:12 us understand
1:32:17 very funny uh thank you councilmember
1:32:19 hall councilmember dean michelle
1:32:22 thank you this is councilmember t
1:32:23 michelle i'm going to follow up
1:32:26 on uh councilmember hall's question
1:32:29 uh just a hypothetical situation let's
1:32:32 just say
1:32:33 we're in phase four and five council
1:32:37 members can appear
1:32:38 in person in the city council and then
1:32:42 two of us for whatever reason aren't
1:32:45 comfortable doing that that maybe
1:32:47 they've been exposed to coven or
1:32:49 whatever
1:32:50 um so with this and so what is what
1:32:53 you're suggesting
1:32:54 apply to that situation and going into
1:32:56 the future
1:32:57 if we had a council member who was sick
1:33:01 i don't know had some other reason that
1:33:04 we could do a hybrid meeting with some
1:33:06 people in person and some people coming
1:33:07 in remotely
1:33:09 is that what we're talking about uh what
1:33:11 we're recommending
1:33:13 um would be um this hybrid approach as
1:33:16 we are
1:33:17 in the phases of returning back to um
1:33:20 sort of open government and in-person
1:33:22 meetings so
1:33:24 we would anticipate that a physical
1:33:27 location may be required
1:33:29 there may be capacity issues there may
1:33:32 be those that may be uncomfortable
1:33:34 and we would encourage the rules to be
1:33:38 written so that you could continue in a
1:33:40 hybrid
1:33:41 during that duration if you want to look
1:33:43 at something
1:33:44 different i think
1:33:47 maybe at a later time maybe once you get
1:33:51 or through these phases then you could
1:33:53 revisit how you would want to allow
1:33:55 other circumstances for that
1:33:58 and then there the question might be
1:34:00 also how would the public
1:34:02 see five of us in person and two of us
1:34:04 remotely
1:34:05 so that would be a technical issue as
1:34:07 well um
1:34:09 and then another question uh as i
1:34:11 understand it in the
1:34:13 on the webex platform you can't break
1:34:15 out into small group discussions the way
1:34:18 you can assume
1:34:19 is that correct in the current
1:34:22 platform that we have and the level of
1:34:24 platform
1:34:26 those breakout sessions aren't there we
1:34:28 could have additional meetings
1:34:30 and then it's just contingent on the
1:34:31 month on the number of licenses that we
1:34:33 have so
1:34:34 similar to our special meetings are
1:34:37 separate from our study sessions
1:34:39 uh we just scheduled separate meetings
1:34:41 there but i i believe webex does have a
1:34:43 platform that allows you to have some
1:34:45 breakouts
1:34:46 if you pay if you pay for the the full
1:34:49 license
1:34:50 and do we know how much more that will
1:34:52 cost we'll call an i.t
1:34:54 friend for that councilmember
1:34:57 so that's the enterprise version that's
1:35:00 about double what we're paying now
1:35:02 so we're paying about 5 000 a year so
1:35:04 we're on the hook for
1:35:05 and it would be about 10 000 for the
1:35:08 same number of seats we have now
1:35:11 okay and that has breakout rooms and a
1:35:13 few other features i don't think it has
1:35:15 backgrounds though
1:35:17 [Laughter]
1:35:18 thank you those are all my questions
1:35:20 yeah what it it
1:35:22 and that just covers the um platform
1:35:25 there's another element which is the
1:35:27 support that we might need for it
1:35:30 and so we've been fortunate that it had
1:35:33 someone who
1:35:34 um was was very customer service and
1:35:37 very technical and could help us pivot
1:35:40 through this
1:35:41 period of time but now their work is
1:35:43 getting shifted to
1:35:45 a utility project implementation so
1:35:49 we would have a deficit there on our our
1:35:52 tech support
1:35:53 so we would need to look at how many
1:35:54 hours would be needed for that and where
1:35:56 does that come from
1:35:58 thank you um council member judy
1:36:00 michelle this is the mayor and i just
1:36:02 want to reiterate that
1:36:03 in our council process you do have the
1:36:06 right to review as a body your rules and
1:36:08 procedure and i think there are two
1:36:10 questions in what you ask
1:36:11 i think the question that we're working
1:36:13 on tonight is
1:36:15 remote meetings during emergency and
1:36:16 unusual situations but i think you have
1:36:18 a valid point
1:36:19 that at some point the council may want
1:36:21 to revisit hybrid meetings and remote
1:36:23 meetings
1:36:24 in non-emergency situations i just think
1:36:26 that's probably in the next
1:36:28 um in the next year at a time if the
1:36:30 council decides to do that
1:36:32 thank you for asking that question
1:36:34 number one
1:36:36 thank you this is councilmember walsh um
1:36:38 when we're
1:36:39 talking about technology and how our
1:36:42 council will use it and then also other
1:36:45 areas of the city i wonder
1:36:47 if there is some interest from other
1:36:50 departments like the municipal court
1:36:56 or in our community engagement that
1:36:59 having a
1:37:00 different system that allows for
1:37:03 secure video conferencing might be
1:37:06 useful
1:37:07 um so that's kind of one question
1:37:11 is is this only a conversation
1:37:14 about how council uses the technology or
1:37:16 are there other considerations
1:37:19 we might look at so council member walt
1:37:22 you are breaking up a little bit but i
1:37:23 think we have the intent of your
1:37:25 question
1:37:25 uh is is this is do we use this
1:37:28 technology for other types of meetings
1:37:30 you mentioned
1:37:31 court and i think
1:37:34 mr trager is probably best to tell you
1:37:36 how we which technology we use for
1:37:38 different types of meetings
1:37:40 john so yeah
1:37:43 unfortunately it's a needlessly
1:37:45 complicated issue
1:37:46 some of this was driven by homeland
1:37:48 security who was sending us
1:37:50 a steady stream of missives saying do
1:37:52 not use zoom do not use zoom
1:37:54 so early on we said okay we won't use
1:37:58 so we were using skype we converted to
1:38:00 teams which was used for all internal
1:38:02 city meetings
1:38:04 what we found out was teams did not have
1:38:08 as did not work on as old as systems
1:38:12 as webex does so
1:38:15 when we attempted to use team for public
1:38:16 meetings you couldn't
1:38:19 some phones older than a certain state
1:38:21 which are still
1:38:22 workable phones for public you know uh
1:38:25 wouldn't
1:38:25 load the app so people couldn't see the
1:38:27 meeting
1:38:28 so we were kind of forced into this
1:38:30 what's the lowest common denominator for
1:38:32 public access on their old smartphones
1:38:34 or older computers um
1:38:37 so that's kind of why between those two
1:38:40 things we ended up with that one
1:38:41 technology now the court
1:38:43 was forced by the state courts
1:38:47 to use a zoom product so we had to have
1:38:49 an isolated pc
1:38:51 that's got a very a designated
1:38:54 use and that's all it does it can't
1:38:55 access anything internal to our network
1:38:58 it's only used in the court sessions and
1:39:00 tied to the cameras there
1:39:03 as well as in the jail so they can do
1:39:04 virtual arraignment and that kind of
1:39:06 stuff
1:39:08 so unfortunately we're stuck with three
1:39:09 platforms right now and i'm not very
1:39:10 excited either if i could have one it
1:39:12 would be great
1:39:14 council member does that answer your
1:39:15 question
1:39:17 yes but i did have um one other question
1:39:20 go ahead okay okay so the other question
1:39:25 right now we're using these platforms as
1:39:27 kind of a meeting platform
1:39:29 have we considered looking at
1:39:32 some of the webinar capabilities that
1:39:35 would allow
1:39:36 more participants to be able to
1:39:39 participate in a video
1:39:44 um platform but not be presenters um i
1:39:48 just wonder whether that would provide
1:39:49 some of the options that people are
1:39:51 looking at um
1:39:53 from the public's perspective
1:39:56 claire kickers hi i can tell you that
1:40:00 um the enterprise platform of webex
1:40:03 should should i believe provide um
1:40:09 more of those services that you're
1:40:10 speaking of i know that we are using
1:40:15 in our community engagement video on
1:40:18 for attendees because that environment
1:40:21 is more
1:40:22 conducive to that interaction and then
1:40:24 as we get into
1:40:26 our more formal meetings or council
1:40:28 meetings
1:40:30 it's best to provide
1:40:34 we can't seat everyone where we'd like
1:40:36 them to we don't have control over the
1:40:38 video
1:40:39 but the the enterprise system would
1:40:41 provide
1:40:43 more of that control
1:40:49 thank you and councilmember walsh this
1:40:52 is the mayor and i just
1:40:53 would like to share just some other
1:40:55 thoughts from our strong mayor's meeting
1:40:56 as well
1:40:57 all cities are struggling with which
1:40:58 platform is the best and trying to
1:41:00 figure out for their community
1:41:02 how to meet the needs and the demands
1:41:04 since we can no longer meet in person
1:41:06 they have it had issues with with city
1:41:10 clerk fed
1:41:10 as well as having inappropriate behavior
1:41:13 on the videos
1:41:14 as well as having community members in
1:41:17 the chat box with the council members at
1:41:19 the same time and the chat boxes the
1:41:21 public record
1:41:22 and so there's been numerous
1:41:24 complications to how to do this
1:41:26 and this is there is no really perfect
1:41:28 solution
1:41:29 our community and you need to figure out
1:41:31 what works best for you also
1:41:34 um i have one more question from council
1:41:36 member dean michelle
1:41:38 uh thank you this is councilmember do
1:41:40 you show them you just touched on the
1:41:42 question i had because
1:41:43 uh the question was how do we manage uh
1:41:46 people who want to speak
1:41:47 after each agenda item at the work study
1:41:50 sessions
1:41:51 and so my thought was could we give
1:41:54 those folks a link
1:41:55 to the meeting which would give them
1:41:56 access to the chat box and
1:41:59 and people are learning to use the chat
1:42:01 box very effectively to just say
1:42:03 question or if we made it really clear
1:42:06 that that was not a place for them to be
1:42:07 talking with us
1:42:08 it's it is only to indicate that they're
1:42:11 ready to make a comment so that was a
1:42:14 question i had is instead of having them
1:42:17 in could we give them the same link that
1:42:20 all of us have so that they have access
1:42:22 to the chat
1:42:23 chat box yeah there's uh latina city
1:42:26 clerk talk about that as well there's
1:42:27 pros and cons city of kent
1:42:29 to spend it doesn't matter what you say
1:42:31 they continue to use the chat box to
1:42:32 express their frustration during the
1:42:34 council meeting and it is a public
1:42:36 record and council members have found it
1:42:37 very distracting
1:42:39 you do have the ability of disabling the
1:42:42 chat feature and we then would have to
1:42:43 figure out how to
1:42:46 work our way through our meeting with
1:42:48 visual cues which when we're working
1:42:50 from home can be hard
1:42:53 to have a script pulled up and a
1:42:56 presentation and a chat box everything
1:42:58 gets about them
1:43:01 at all so yes it's possible uh there are
1:43:04 some other compromises with it uh city
1:43:06 clerk edgars
1:43:08 um yes and uh again the interaction of
1:43:12 the video
1:43:12 and chat can be more helpful in in other
1:43:15 types of meetings
1:43:17 um and and we are using those tools
1:43:20 there
1:43:21 for the council meetings um again we're
1:43:24 looking for
1:43:24 for more structure and
1:43:27 i can tell you that we are leaning
1:43:29 heavily on the attorney general's
1:43:32 advice on how meetings
1:43:35 should be accessible and the most
1:43:37 simplest platform
1:43:39 and the phone feature is
1:43:42 is that and so we we
1:43:46 that is our first
1:43:50 preference and our strongest advocate
1:43:53 is to um phone in phone and phone in
1:43:56 and then um continue to
1:43:59 um you know showcase and encourage
1:44:03 all the other ways that our videos can
1:44:05 be watched and streamed and
1:44:07 we're fortunate that we already have you
1:44:09 know an audience
1:44:11 watching your meetings in in that
1:44:13 environment
1:44:15 so tisha did you have anything else to
1:44:19 okay so thank you for the questions i
1:44:23 think
1:44:23 in order to make sure that the council
1:44:26 gets to discuss
1:44:27 each of the items of concern i'm going
1:44:28 to go back to some of the questions
1:44:31 and read through the ones that were
1:44:32 submitted in advance
1:44:34 if you feel like one of those hasn't
1:44:36 been fully answered please indicate so
1:44:38 in the chat box
1:44:40 um why are we having virtual meetings
1:44:44 and under what authority
1:44:46 the city code and council rules don't
1:44:49 address the topic of virtual meetings is
1:44:51 this an issue why or why not
1:44:53 what technical parameters are we working
1:44:55 under what we can and can't do
1:44:57 what would what we could do but is
1:44:59 difficult etc
1:45:01 what is working well what is working not
1:45:03 so well from a clerk's perspective
1:45:06 are there things clerks think should be
1:45:09 addressed
1:45:10 for example adding to the code under our
1:45:12 council rule
1:45:14 were there any and please use the chat
1:45:16 box to let me know if you feel like a
1:45:18 little more information is needed on any
1:45:20 of those questions
1:45:21 and until i see something i'll continue
1:45:28 i have started a little list of
1:45:31 items um i can see that there needs to
1:45:34 be some discussion amongst the council
1:45:36 members about public comment
1:45:37 at a study session whether it's less
1:45:40 formal
1:45:41 um or formal they
1:45:44 clarity on providing uh
1:45:47 clarity on having meetings remotely
1:45:49 under what situations
1:45:51 um and then uh sort of might be a
1:45:54 conversation here around the technology
1:45:56 and and the um potential upgrade to
1:46:00 webex and i can't remember the extension
1:46:03 but another form which does allow
1:46:05 for a few more issues um the questions
1:46:08 that the console
1:46:09 conversation if we want to start with
1:46:11 this there are
1:46:12 four additional questions what does
1:46:14 council think is working well and not so
1:46:16 well and if you have any comments on
1:46:18 that please indicate in the chat box and
1:46:19 we can move around through the council
1:46:26 we may have covered some of this in your
1:46:27 comments already but let's just see if
1:46:29 there's anything else to throw out on
1:46:30 the table councilmember walsh
1:46:33 thank you this is councilmember walsh
1:46:35 what i think is working
1:46:36 well is that we haven't had meetings
1:46:39 break we haven't had
1:46:41 people have a hard time participating
1:46:43 things have gone
1:46:46 and i think we can absolutely credit
1:46:48 city staff
1:46:49 and the clerk's office in particular in
1:46:52 in just making things work as well
1:46:55 as being able to transition between
1:46:58 three different platforms
1:47:00 when we saw the need for
1:47:03 additional capabilities that's not
1:47:06 something that
1:47:07 every city staff would be willing to do
1:47:09 and so i think we can absolutely credit
1:47:11 that as
1:47:12 things that are doing well um
1:47:16 and in many cases we don't notice those
1:47:17 because it's just working
1:47:20 and that's something that we need to
1:47:21 recognize uh the things that
1:47:24 i think aren't as well
1:47:27 you know or that could be improved are
1:47:30 probably just
1:47:31 getting more um public participation and
1:47:34 making them feel like they're
1:47:36 a part of the meeting and not just an
1:47:39 accessory
1:47:40 and so i'm looking for a way to solve
1:47:43 that but
1:47:44 i don't i wouldn't put that
1:47:47 above being able to have a meeting in
1:47:50 this environment that
1:47:51 works um so i think exploring options
1:47:54 is uh where we're at okay
1:47:58 thank you i am not seeing any other
1:48:00 council members at that time wanting oh
1:48:02 councilmember today michelle
1:48:05 sorry about that this is councilman
1:48:07 michelle just want to say that i
1:48:09 sat in on a meeting through the sound
1:48:12 cities association last week
1:48:14 talking about virtual meetings and
1:48:17 there were city council members from all
1:48:21 over the state of washington
1:48:23 and um that was a really good
1:48:25 perspective for me to
1:48:27 get because um councilmember walsh's
1:48:30 is absolutely right we are doing
1:48:34 way better than a lot of other cities
1:48:36 are doing and
1:48:38 we are involving a lot of people some
1:48:41 city councils have even dropped having
1:48:44 community comment during this period so
1:48:47 uh the fact that we have such good
1:48:48 participation i think is
1:48:50 kudos to the staff um i will say
1:48:54 uh from my own point of view that i miss
1:48:58 seeing the faces of the people who are
1:49:00 talking to us
1:49:02 um it's not something that i'm willing
1:49:05 throw out the whole system in order to
1:49:07 achieve um
1:49:09 i it's just a personal um
1:49:13 reaction that i have i would like to see
1:49:15 their faces
1:49:16 um but if we can't solve that problem i
1:49:19 think that what we are doing now
1:49:20 is very very good certainly higher
1:49:23 quality than a lot of other
1:49:25 places are achieving thanks thank you
1:49:28 councilmember d michelle councilmember
1:49:30 goodman
1:49:32 uh thank you councilmember goodman here
1:49:34 um i too think that staff has done just
1:49:36 a fabulous job of
1:49:38 first of all pivoting in the beginning
1:49:40 and second of all um
1:49:42 getting us fairly quickly to a place
1:49:45 where we
1:49:46 just have had so few hang-ups and it's
1:49:49 um in my opinion just so
1:49:51 professionally done and i and i really
1:49:53 appreciate that
1:49:54 um i i would
1:49:59 my preference would be to have
1:50:03 figure out a way to have comments from
1:50:06 the public
1:50:07 after each agenda item
1:50:11 i would that would be my priority over
1:50:15 seeing people's faces i mean i like to
1:50:17 see people's faces too
1:50:20 and and so but i think i'm more
1:50:23 interested in
1:50:25 having the engagement i've
1:50:28 not really seen any change between
1:50:31 what we've had in person and what folks
1:50:33 are doing now sometimes they bring
1:50:36 um scripted comments and sometimes they
1:50:39 don't
1:50:40 when we've had study sessions and
1:50:41 committee meetings before in person
1:50:44 uh some they will bring scripted um
1:50:46 comments maybe not
1:50:48 um and after the after we've had
1:50:51 presentations and
1:50:52 questions by council members sometimes
1:50:54 the public comments are
1:50:56 revised um based on what
1:51:00 um questions and maybe the direction and
1:51:02 the council appears to be heading in
1:51:04 but sometimes they're changed and
1:51:06 sometimes they're not
1:51:08 but i i think there is just a very high
1:51:11 value
1:51:12 in the public having an opportunity to
1:51:14 speak to us
1:51:16 and provide some feedback to us in real
1:51:19 as um policies may be
1:51:22 forming during our meetings um and so
1:51:26 i do think that's important and i will
1:51:27 be interested to see what my fellow
1:51:29 council members
1:51:30 um think about that thank you and thank
1:51:33 you i also want to say thank you
1:51:35 um to tina attisha for putting this
1:51:37 together um
1:51:39 and um tonight on very short notice i
1:51:43 know you guys are
1:51:44 so so busy and that means that you
1:51:46 really had to be ready for this
1:51:48 late last week so you had very little
1:51:50 time and i really appreciate it thank
1:51:51 you very much
1:51:52 thank you councilmember goodman
1:51:54 councilmember mark followed by council
1:51:55 member hall
1:51:57 thank you madam mayor it's a council
1:51:58 member marx i very much agree with
1:52:00 council member goodman
1:52:02 that taking comment
1:52:05 at each item is beneficial it was one of
1:52:09 the things that
1:52:10 i always liked about when i was able to
1:52:13 work that way in committee
1:52:15 i think it leads to a more robust
1:52:19 conversation
1:52:20 in terms of how we might actually do it
1:52:24 again i understand this whole webex
1:52:26 versus other technologies question but
1:52:28 some of the some of the technologies
1:52:30 allow you to raise your hand
1:52:31 and so what you could conceivably do is
1:52:34 allow people to raise their hand to be
1:52:36 recognized
1:52:37 and still have control over the chat
1:52:40 and the voice communications
1:52:43 and i think i think that would address
1:52:45 it it might involve more work
1:52:47 in support but it would maintain the
1:52:48 control that we need because
1:52:50 yes i have been involved in large groups
1:52:52 where we tell people to keep the chat
1:52:54 for business only
1:52:55 and it's it's comical for a while and
1:52:58 then it just gets really really
1:52:59 frustrating
1:53:00 so uh um anyhow those are my thoughts
1:53:02 thank you
1:53:03 thank you council member mertz
1:53:05 councilmember hall
1:53:07 thank you mayor paulie city
1:53:09 councilmembers.com here um
1:53:11 and let me also throw in my thanks to
1:53:13 tina and tisha in particular for
1:53:16 uh at the end of public comment always
1:53:19 calling out to see if there's any
1:53:20 additional public comment i think we
1:53:22 found
1:53:23 several times where we found several
1:53:25 more people
1:53:26 and that it's been very valuable we
1:53:29 wouldn't we would have missed those
1:53:30 people
1:53:31 thank you
1:53:32 [Music]
1:53:35 for hearing public comment before items
1:53:38 i say
1:53:39 just try it um let's do a
1:53:42 um let's try it out for a while and see
1:53:46 what it looks like
1:53:47 i don't think we need to invest a whole
1:53:49 new system we pay more money to try it
1:53:52 we can see what it's like logistically
1:53:53 with this system without
1:53:55 seeing people's faces doing it over the
1:53:58 phone
1:53:59 um but if it's yeah i mean let's try it
1:54:03 out and then
1:54:03 hear more from city clerks about what
1:54:08 what that means for how they're running
1:54:10 meetings
1:54:11 i don't i don't see any reason why we at
1:54:13 least try it
1:54:14 um and then
1:54:18 in terms of video participation i know
1:54:21 the school district does something kind
1:54:22 of like that they do zoom
1:54:24 uh where participants can come in they
1:54:27 don't have access to the chat they don't
1:54:28 have access to
1:54:30 to a speaker or anything it's just the
1:54:34 video they can see
1:54:36 um i think youtube is fine
1:54:39 they can see the exact same thing so i
1:54:41 think also just recognizing where
1:54:44 you know it's pretty much the same thing
1:54:46 and we're saving money potentially
1:54:48 is important consideration for me
1:54:52 when i'm when i'm looking at our virtual
1:54:54 meetings
1:54:56 thank you thank you councilmember hall
1:54:59 um i will recap what we heard
1:55:02 um what's working well access it's
1:55:06 successful information
1:55:07 implementation of webex uh what is not
1:55:10 well maybe if we could find ways for the
1:55:12 more public to participate
1:55:14 and make them feel like they are real
1:55:16 part of the meeting
1:55:18 well is how the community comments are
1:55:21 being incorporated into the meeting
1:55:23 not well seeing the faces not being able
1:55:25 to see the faces of who is talking to us
1:55:30 on the on the good side these are very
1:55:32 professional meetings
1:55:33 uh would like the ability to well we
1:55:35 have the ability to raise your hand but
1:55:37 want to make sure we'd be able to do
1:55:38 that even in the informal format
1:55:40 um and making sure we do call outs for
1:55:43 additional public comment
1:55:44 not well comments after each study
1:55:47 session agenda item
1:55:49 and um again that was repeated three
1:55:52 times so i'm starting a little list of
1:55:54 things to wrap
1:55:55 up on and have conversations around but
1:55:57 i am going to proceed to the
1:56:00 next question on the list which was
1:56:03 this is the list i'm trying to take are
1:56:04 there tweaks and changes you're
1:56:06 interested in making
1:56:07 i have three written down so far i will
1:56:09 read them and then you guys can
1:56:11 blade me in the comment bar if you want
1:56:12 me to add to them
1:56:15 are there opportunities for the future
1:56:17 such as whether some elements of virtual
1:56:18 meetings can be incorporated into
1:56:20 in-person meetings
1:56:22 i'm going to have city administrator bob
1:56:23 kowitz maybe use his crystal ball to
1:56:26 tell you what he thinks
1:56:27 is not just coming in the fall but maybe
1:56:30 in the next year or so because
1:56:32 it's going to be interesting for quite a
1:56:34 while to administer
1:56:36 above quits yes members of the council
1:56:40 i think we are going to need to come up
1:56:42 with a hybrid format um
1:56:43 and i would hope that uh one of the
1:56:46 takeaways from this evening would be to
1:56:48 have the administration
1:56:49 uh work on amendments to your rules
1:56:52 uh for the the non-emergency post
1:56:56 covet period i think some of the
1:56:57 comments that were made earlier
1:56:59 i think were spot on as far as our
1:57:01 ability uh to be prepared to do that so
1:57:04 i i don't know madam mayor how more
1:57:06 specific you want to get
1:57:08 this evening under that other than to
1:57:10 you know take the responsibility that
1:57:12 over the next
1:57:14 couple of months we'll be working on
1:57:16 some revisions uh to the
1:57:18 council's rules to address that see
1:57:21 administrator that is great i just want
1:57:23 to let them know that we have been
1:57:24 talking about
1:57:25 you and i have been talking about you
1:57:26 know the path back to normal is probably
1:57:29 a long and winding path and so those
1:57:31 were very good points that were made by
1:57:33 the council members today
1:57:34 uh council member ray has a comment
1:57:38 hi thank you this is chris ray when we
1:57:41 put together the
1:57:42 the last set of council uh rules of
1:57:45 procedure
1:57:46 we talked fairly extensively about
1:57:48 remote meetings during normal times
1:57:50 and you know it's a different council
1:57:53 it's a different time
1:57:55 but that's not something i want to enter
1:57:56 into lightly we
1:57:58 we deliberated it for a long time and
1:58:00 decided that was not
1:58:02 something that we thought was in our
1:58:03 best interest now i'm
1:58:05 really open to the idea of more
1:58:08 and interesting ways for the public to
1:58:11 interact with the council
1:58:12 remotely and i'm really interested in
1:58:15 during a transition period from
1:58:17 [Music]
1:58:19 what we have right now to the back to a
1:58:22 more stable
1:58:24 setting of using remote meetings but i
1:58:26 think if we're going to talk about
1:58:27 remote meetings as an ongoing way
1:58:31 of doing business that's going to take
1:58:34 serious deliberations among this body
1:58:36 before
1:58:37 i would be comfortable endorsing it so
1:58:40 there are some areas that i'm
1:58:41 comfortable exploring but
1:58:44 not necessarily remote meetings
1:58:47 um thank you i'm going to go through a
1:58:49 list that i've assembled from listening
1:58:51 to your conversation tonight and please
1:58:53 raise your hand in the chat box if you
1:58:55 feel there's something else you'd
1:58:56 like to add to the list the council
1:58:59 would like to talk about having public
1:59:01 comment at study sessions in uh it
1:59:04 sounded to me like a less
1:59:05 formal way making it easy for us to
1:59:08 administer
1:59:09 and easy for the public to comment so
1:59:11 that was one area for discussion
1:59:14 um clarity on meetings remotely
1:59:17 either in two situations does the
1:59:19 council want to talk about it in
1:59:20 emergency situations only or to broader
1:59:23 conversation
1:59:24 of what a hybrid looks like in in the
1:59:26 future
1:59:27 and then the last was whether or not the
1:59:29 council was interested in pursuing
1:59:32 different technology that would allow
1:59:34 some of the different additional
1:59:35 features
1:59:36 that are either needs or nice to have
1:59:40 and those were the only three things
1:59:42 that i pulled out so please raise your
1:59:44 hand if there's something
1:59:45 else that you think the council body
1:59:47 would like to discuss this evening
1:59:48 besides
1:59:49 those categories
1:59:54 if not thank you councilmember michelle
1:59:57 to add oh just to add on
2:00:00 um to the additional technology that we
2:00:04 might invest in
2:00:06 having been in lots of zoom meetings in
2:00:08 the last few months that breakout
2:00:10 session
2:00:10 ability capability that zoom has is
2:00:14 uh there are so many um
2:00:17 innovative ways that that is being used
2:00:19 it's such a great way to
2:00:21 involve uh the community it might not
2:00:24 pertain particularly to council meetings
2:00:26 but certainly like the convening
2:00:29 the environmental convening that was
2:00:31 held this week or earlier last week
2:00:34 it would have been a great benefit to
2:00:36 that group and i think
2:00:39 i i would really like to see us the best
2:00:42 the additional um capabilities of that
2:00:44 platform to be able to do that
2:00:46 right thank you um city ministry bob
2:00:50 quits you'd like to make a comment on
2:00:51 next steps
2:00:54 yes madam mayor uh with those three
2:00:57 steps identified um
2:00:59 what i'd like to suggest is first that
2:01:01 the administration
2:01:02 work uh over the next few months and
2:01:04 come back to the city council
2:01:06 with some amended rules uh that would
2:01:08 deal with remote meetings i think we
2:01:09 want to take some time to
2:01:11 consider the comments this evening um
2:01:13 and and come back with those uh with
2:01:15 those ideas
2:01:16 uh secondly i think there appears to be
2:01:19 great interest in having
2:01:21 the ability for residents to make
2:01:23 comments after
2:01:24 presentations for each item during study
2:01:26 sessions
2:01:28 with the council's concurrence let us go
2:01:30 and sort through that
2:01:32 i don't believe we'll be ready for
2:01:33 tomorrow night um
2:01:36 or or or uh or well there's and then
2:01:39 there's special meetings
2:01:40 um on the 10th there's a study session
2:01:42 on the 11th
2:01:43 we could certainly shoot for that study
2:01:45 session on the 11th
2:01:46 to have some procedures in place and
2:01:48 then if we need to refine those
2:01:50 procedures we can move forward and do
2:01:53 the third regarding of the platforms
2:01:55 there's really a simple answer
2:01:57 for the reason why we've not expended
2:01:59 additional dollars on video and that is
2:02:01 because we still believe we have a three
2:02:02 million dollar deficit uh in the current
2:02:04 fiscal year
2:02:05 and so the staff has been reluctant to
2:02:08 take on
2:02:09 uh what might be considered as nice to
2:02:11 have additional expenses
2:02:13 but we'll commit to continue to look at
2:02:15 the webex platform
2:02:17 as mr trager said we are not comfortable
2:02:19 with zoom we've been advised by the
2:02:21 federal government
2:02:22 uh that that zoom is not an appropriate
2:02:24 platform to conduct government business
2:02:26 um and so we want to be mindful of that
2:02:28 uh but we can look if it's a five
2:02:30 thousand dollar
2:02:31 uh additional expense for webex uh we
2:02:34 can certainly continue to evaluate that
2:02:35 and see if that makes sense
2:02:37 uh but again the reason for everyone to
2:02:39 understand why we've not done it
2:02:41 is because we are facing a three million
2:02:43 dollar deficit and i think staff
2:02:44 rightfully said let's leverage the
2:02:46 investments
2:02:47 that we already have and see how best we
2:02:50 can make them work so madam mayor
2:02:52 perhaps with those three commitments
2:02:54 that addresses i think the remaining
2:02:56 issues and
2:02:57 with the council's concurrence we can
2:02:58 move forward
2:03:00 i am good thank you very much the
2:03:02 administrator bob quits i'm going to go
2:03:03 back to council member mark
2:03:05 thank you madam mayor just a quick
2:03:07 comment from council member mark
2:03:08 once again zoom gov is totally different
2:03:11 than regular zoom
2:03:12 and has completely different security
2:03:14 protocols and
2:03:15 i can tell you very secure information
2:03:19 can be
2:03:20 shared in june gov thank you thank you
2:03:22 councilmember mertz
2:03:24 i'm lee we are
2:03:27 at the end of our conversation i am not
2:03:29 seeing much more
2:03:31 uh i actually i'll see a few comments um
2:03:35 so we'll finish off uh with council
2:03:37 president hunt
2:03:38 let's comment
2:03:41 um thank you this is council president
2:03:43 hunt i
2:03:45 i was thinking more about um council
2:03:47 member day michelle's comments about the
2:03:49 breakout rooms
2:03:50 um i hadn't expected to make a comment
2:03:51 on this but i do think that with the
2:03:54 social isolation that a lot of people
2:03:56 are feeling um having options
2:03:58 for talking with their neighbors um that
2:04:00 could be
2:04:01 really valuable um it could be a way
2:04:04 that sort of replaces like the
2:04:06 um if you if you had a you know
2:04:08 neighborhood barbecues and things that
2:04:09 people aren't
2:04:10 able to do to talk with other community
2:04:12 members so for those sorts of community
2:04:13 meetings i think it would be
2:04:15 it would definitely be a i think a
2:04:18 valuable way for people to speak with
2:04:20 each other in smaller groups so i would
2:04:21 consider
2:04:22 and i i understand the budget
2:04:24 constraints and that it's more expensive
2:04:26 but i do think that might
2:04:28 that might be valuable for folks given
2:04:30 the situation
2:04:31 thank you council president hunt not
2:04:34 seeing any additional comments
2:04:36 uh there was no formal action requested
2:04:38 this evening just feedback and direct
2:04:40 direction which you have done
2:04:41 thank you very much i think the city
2:04:43 administrators summed up the next steps
2:04:44 quite well
2:04:46 um so oops i'm looking back in the chat
2:04:49 box okay
2:04:49 no no additional comments so there being
2:04:52 no further business this evening the
2:04:54 meeting is adjourned at 9 10.
2:04:56 thank you all and have a great night

Attendance

Council / Members (7)
Barbara de Michele
Stacy Goodman
Zach Hall
Victoria Hunt
Tola Marts
Chris Reh
Lindsey Walsh

Motions and votes (2)

Refer AB 8013 to a Special Study Session on Aug. 25, 2020 returning to the full Council on or before Sept. 9, 2020. .
Moved by REH · seconded by HUNT
Carried 7-0
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Stacy Goodman, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh
Create an ad hoc committee to review AB 8013 and propose housing stability strategies comprised of Councilmembers de Michele, Hall and Hunt, reporting to the full Council at a Special Study Session on Aug. 25, and returning to the full Council on or before Sept. 9, 2020. . c)
Moved by HUNT · seconded by WALSH
Carried 7-0
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Stacy Goodman, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh