AN ORDINANCE related to City finances; creating a fund for depositing donations, gifts, and grants related to The City of Seattle’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic; creating a Budget Summary Level; amending Ordinance 126000, which adopted the 2020 Budget; changing appropriations to various departments and budget control levels, and from various funds in the Budget; declaring an emergency; and establishing an immediate effective date; all by a 3/4 vote of the City Council.
Agenda Item one Capital 119 763 Relating to city finances, creating a fund for depositing donations, gifts and grants related to the city. Seattle's Response to the COVID 19 pandemic. Creating a budget summary level. Amending Ordinance 126000, which adopted the 2020 budget. Changing appropriations to various departments and budget control levels and from various funds in the budget. Declaring an emergency and establishing an immediate effective date all by three fourths of the City Council. Thank you. This is a bill that I'm sponsoring, so I will move to pass council bill 119763 again. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded to pass the bill as sponsor of this bill. I'll first address the bill and I know that there are three amendments, two amendments to the underlying bill and one amendment to the amendment . So I apologize that this seems a little clunky, but bear with me as we work through the parliamentary procedure. So really quickly, I'll describe the Council bill and then I'm going to hand it over to Councilmember Mesquita to put to put amendment number one on the table before we then put it over to Councilmember Herbold, who will discuss an amendment to Amendment One. So in response to this COVID 19 outbreak and its economic effects, many philanthropic and business partners have expressed an interest in donating resources to assist people and businesses in Seattle that may be in need as a result of the economic crisis that we are currently experiencing. Article one Section one of the City Charter provides that the City of Seattle may accept gifts and donations of all kinds and do all acts necessary to carry out the purposes of the gifts and donations. However, our Seattle Municipal Code requires that even though in a proclaimed civil emergency, the mayor may accept gifts, grants or loans, the council must act legislatively to allow for the acceptance of those gifts, grants or loan. So that is what this legislation is designed and intended to do. The legislation would create a new fund in the city treasury for the receipt of gifts, donations and grants to the city to assist in the management of and recovery from crises created by the COVID 19 global pandemic. The uses for these funds could include food assistance for persons in need. Financial assistance to small businesses. Assistance with childcare costs. Loan guarantees for small businesses or individuals. Rent assistance for small businesses or individuals. And operating assistance to cultural and nonprofit organizations. We will be considering some amendments this afternoon to expand that list of allowable uses, which I consider to be from the amendments. This legislation would also create a new budget summary level line to allow city departments to spend from the new fund for the purpose of assisting in the recovery from the COVID 19 pandemic. It also gives the exact the executive authority to accept gifts, donations and grants consistent with the purposes of the fund without additional approval by the City Council so as to move the assistance forward in a timely manner. There'll also be an amendment that we will consider this afternoon that requires reporting back to the city council so that we can make sure that that the executive is still staying accountable to the intent and design of this legislation. This legislation would also gives appropriation to finance general contingent on the receipt of those donations so that they can quickly deploy these resources. And lastly, the legislation is necessary to go excuse me, this legislation is considered to be emergency legislation to allow it to go into immediate effect in order to protect public health, safety and welfare. So that is a summary of the of the legislation and what it is intended to to address. And I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Councilmember Mosqueda, who has an amendment Amendment one to this council bill. Councilmember Mosqueda. Thank you. Council President. I'd like to move to amend council bill 119763 by including amendment number one. It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill. Councilman Muscat, I'm going to ask you to address the amendment first and then I'm going to have Councilmember Herbold make an amendment to your amendment, and then we can have a discussion about the whole package. And then we'll vote on Councilmember Herbold amendment to Amendment One. And then, if that passes, will vote on your amendment, Amendment One as amended. All right. So, Councilmember Mosqueda, why don't you address your amendment before we hand it over to Councilmember Herbold? Thank you, Madam President. I put forward this amendment because I support the goal of being able to act quickly to deploy resources from private donations or grants as soon as possible, to provide relief to those in our community who are experiencing the impacts of COVID. At the same time, I think it's important that we have transparency and oversight in how we're allocating those dollars. As a council, I think it's important that we understand the full picture of dollars going to support various needs, such as small business support, food assistance, homeless support and housing, so that we are able to make informed decisions about other expenditures. The amendment that is included here in Amendment One would require weekly reporting on how these funds are being spent so that we're able to maintain proper oversight and also enabling expedient direction of these funds to where they need to go in the community as fast as possible. Thank you so much to Councilmember Herbold for her amendment to this amendment, which I see as friendly as well. Thank you. Councilman Mosquito, we will not handed over to Councilmember Herbold to discuss her friendly amendment. Thank you so much. I move to amend Amendment One as presented on version two of Amendment three on the agenda. Second. It's been moved and seconded to amend Amendment One. Councilmember Herbold. Please speak to your amendments. Thank you so much. I really appreciate Council President Gonzalez for bringing forward this legislation as well as councilmember up for her Amendment one and the Amendment two that we'll be hearing in a little bit. Amendment three is intended to build off of Amendment one to specify that reporting requirements are are needed to be according to the categories of spending listed in Section three of the resolution in the category of emergency housing and homelessness supports added by Councilmember Mosquito in a subsequent amendment that we'll discuss in a minute. As we know, this legislation allows for quick action on donations in line with this being an emergency. However, authorizing up to $30 million in appropriations, the Council is forgoing its normal budget carry authority. So reporting as proposed by Councilmember Muskat and her Amendment One makes a whole lot of sense. This amendment simply ensures that the reporting includes the categories that we have identified as allowed categories so that we have a clear sense of which needs are being addressed and funded. And that's what this amendment would do. Thank you. Council Member Herbold, are there any comments or questions on Amendment three, which is Councilmember Herbold Amendment? Okay. Hearing none will the clerk call the roll on the adoption of Amendment three? Councilmember Juarez. I. Councilmember Lewis, I. Councilmember Morales. I. Councilmember Macheda. I. Councilmember Peterson. I. Council members a lot like. Councilmember Strauss. Councilmember Strauss. Thank you, Councilmember Herbold. I. President Gonzalez, I. Nine in favor and on the post. The motion carries and amendment three is no, I'm sorry, the motion carries an amendment three passes. So now we will consider the amendment one as amended. Are there any further comments on Amendment one as amended? A hearing nun. Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment One as amended? Councilmember suarez. I. Councilmember lewis. I. Councilmember Morales. I. Councilmember Mesquita. I. Councilmember Peterson. I. Councilmember Swan, I. Councilmember Strauss. I. Councilmember Herbal. Hi. President Gonzalez. I. Nine in favor, none opposed. Thank you. The motion carries an amendment. One is adopted as amended. I believe there is a Second Amendment to Council Bill 119763, which is sponsored by Councilmember Mesquita. So I'm going to hand it over to her to make the motion to amend the Council bill accordingly for discussion. Thank you, Madam President. I move to amend Council Bill 119763 with the text included an amendment to. Is there a second? Second, it's been moved and seconded to amend the bill. Councilmember Maceda, please feel free to speak to your amendment. Thank you, Madam President. This amendment expands the list of authorized users of this fund to include emergency support for housing and homelessness services. As this crisis unfolds, the existing housing and homelessness crises are also well beyond the emergency level capacity. We need to make sure that new funds can also go to those on our front line providers who are working to get folks out of dangerous close quarters off the streets and into dwellings where they can safely practice social distancing and make sure that they get the care that they need during this crisis. This is critical for those who are also in permanent supportive housing, as we've heard from many of our human service provider organizations who are providing assistance, both in terms of counseling and food delivery. They are in dire need of additional support for those who are in permanent supportive housing as well. Appreciate the generosity that's been already shown by the support for this fund. And I'm hoping that with this amendment to include emergency housing and homelessness supports as an authorized use, we can see more funding being available for things like affordable hotel rooms, food delivery, PPE for frontline workers and staff who provide services in our housing and homelessness shelters. This enables the funds from the donation to the city to go to those who I think are really on the front line, helping our most vulnerable residents in need of secure housing. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda for that amendment. Are there any comments or questions about amendment to. K hearing none will the clerk call the roll on the adoption of amendment to. Councilmember suarez. All right. Councilmember lewis. I am. Councilmember morales. I. Councilmember Mesquita. I. Councilmember Peterson. I. Council members. So on. I. Councilmember Strauss. I. Councilmember Herbold, i. President Gonzales. I. Nine in favor. None opposed. Thank you. The bill passed. I'm sorry. The motion carries and the amendment is adopted. Are there any other comments on the bill as amended? I'm not seeing any. So sorry. Oh, yes, I do have comments. Okay. Please. Councilmember Salon. Thank you, President Gonzalez. I will be voting yes on this bill to create a structure of a fund to allowing the city to accept philanthropy, to support people whose lives have been devastated and are going to be in the coming months by the coronavirus crisis. However, we do need to be clear that in general, when big business gives what they call philanthropy, they often get back far more in profits and through favorable political legislation or absence of legislation, much more than they donate because they are donations by political power. Guzman, Morales and I have advocated for a big business tax of 500 million per year. I have no doubt that big business will attempt to use their donations into this much smaller, $3 million fund to attempt to argue that they should continue to avoid paying anything in terms of significant taxation. Furthermore, we also need changes statewide and federally, and I think statistics that are being compiled through economic studies in the past decades have shown that actually corporate philanthropy does very little do nothing to address the massive inequality that has just grown nationwide, and now it has become even more emergent in the face of this pandemic. So we need changes at every level. My office has launched a petition to Governor Inslee to make a number of those changes, and we will need a movement to fight for this. If members of the public are watching this, then please get involved in this fight. We're calling on Governor Inslee to close all corporate tax loopholes to immediately tax big business and wealthy households. And then, of course, federally, we need massive changes. And that's why I'm strongly supporting Senator Bernie Sanders's $2 trillion proposal for a bailout of working families, which also includes $2,000 per month income for working families through this crisis. It's also been noted, Sadistically, that on average workers give a higher percentage of their income to charity and the middle class give higher percentage of the income to charity than does big business or the wealthy. And nobody argues, ever, that taxes on workers should be eliminated because they are already giving charity. So I would urge everybody who's watching this for us to build a movement that is vigilant about not accepting that argument from big business. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. So on. And I agree with your remarks. You know, it seems like every time we talk about progressive taxation or taxation in general, we oftentimes get the philanthropic efforts of big business thrown back at us as an argument to prevent or minimize taxation or revenue creation tools. So I appreciate your reminder on that front. Are there any other comments or questions about the underlying bill before we vote on it? You have not seen any one come forward. So we'll go ahead and vote on the bill. So will the clerk call the roll on the passage of the bill as amended? Councilmember Suarez. I. Councilmember Lewis, I. Councilmember Morales, I. Councilmember Mesquita. I. Councilmember Peterson. I. Council members who want a. Councilmember Strauss. I Council member Herbal. All right. President Gonzalez. I. Nine in favor, nine opposed. Thank you. The bill passes as amended and the chair will sign it. Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf? Okay. We're going to go ahead and move to item two with the clerk. Please read item two into the record. Agenda Item two Capital 119 760 4126000, which adopts the 2020 budget changing appropriations to the Executive Department's Office of Sustainability and Environment, the Department of Neighborhoods, the Department of Education and Early Learning, Parks and Recreation and Budget Control levels, and from various funds in the Budget for the purpose of providing support to individuals.