2019 State of the City Address delivered by Mayor Jenny A. Durkan on February 19, 2019.
The report of the City Council Agenda one clerk 5314415 2019 State of the City address delivered by Mayor Jenny Durkan on February 19th, 2019. Just one moment. So this is a just sort of a perfunctory filing of the file, the speech, if you will, and I believe we will vote on it. And we'll place the file on the file before we vote on filing the clerk file. But anyone wish to say any words? No regrets council members want. Thank you, President Hollande. Just wanted to explain to members of the public that the vote the council is about to take will file into the city's records, the mayor's State of the City address. And of course, it should be on record. So I will be voting yes, but my vote will not be a vote on the content of the speech. However, and I wanted to bring to light something that the mayor said that was, in my view, dangerously inaccurate. Three times in his speech, Mayor Durkan said that Seattle has invested over $710 million in affordable housing during her time in office, adding, however, compare that while the claim to what it actually says in her budget, in the mayor's budget, it lists the funds that she has made available to build affordable housing. It is, and this can be verified by council members. It is less than $50 million per year, not 710 million. And as a matter of fact, if the political establishment was actually willing to spend $710 million on building affordable housing instead of under 50 million, then we could actually begin to seriously address the affordable housing crisis. The problem is that when the mayor exaggerates the investment in affordable housing, it sounds like it is not necessary to tax big business to build affordable housing on a scale big enough to have a real impact. But that would be wrong. In reality, the mayor is not investing 710 million. Really. She is investing less than 1% of the city budget in affordable housing. And regular people will need to continue to get organized to build a movement, to build anything close to affordable housing worth $710 million. And let's remember that ordinary people in New York City just won a massive victory against Amazon in its attempt to get a $3 billion corporate handout, including a helipad for Jeff Bezos. It really shows that when people get organized, we can win. This was assumed to be a done deal by everybody, including business owners, who were surprised by the fact that Amazon had to back off. So I will be voting yes on filing this Clark file, but I do not endorse her false claim about investment in affordable housing. Thank you. Thank you for those words, Councilmember. What would anyone else like to say anything before we file the Clark file? And for the viewing public, this is a public document. The facts are, I believe that Councilmember Swan was referring to our Page seven of the published document and I personally wanted to thank the Mayor for giving a speech and creating a vision for what this city could be. Okay, I'll move to file Clark. File 314415. Those in favor of filing the Clark. Please vote i i those opposed vote no. The motion carries no place. The file is placed on file. So please read the next agenda item into the record. The Report of the Governance, Equity and Technology Committee Agenda Item to Council 119 454 Relating to the City of Seattle Smart River Radio Transmitter Facility, the committee recommends Eagle Pass.