AN ORDINANCE authorizing a new funding agreement and amendment to the existing financing agreement with the Washington State Major League Baseball Stadium Public Facilities District.
All right, it's 11:00. And staff has been diligently working and I believe that we are ready to legislate. I'd like to convene the meeting of the committee of the whole, and what has been distributed to council members are a series of amendments and a cover page or a guide to the amendments. The amendments are numbered as follows. First is S1 what we call a striking amendment, one that contains a number of technical and legal changes, and staff will brief on that. Then we will turn to kind of the major policy amendments, and there are two of those before us, at least I would call them that. On the kind of allocation issue there is the Caldwell's amendment and then there is the and then there is a McDermott amendment, and we will take those in that order. And then there are some what I would call a deal point amendments three through eight. And we will go through those item by item and take votes and see if there isn't five or more votes to add that something out today. And there's a ninth one as well. Okay. There is a ninth one that's not on here, but it's got that's the labor neutrality language. Yeah. And then there's a title amendment. All right. So we're joined by our central staff folks who have been taking the lead on this, Andrew, Kim and Jeff, Mom and I, before they get going, we want to thank both of them along with our counsel, Kendall Moore and counsel Mike Hoover, who all of whom have been working through the night, Andrew, and the morning to respond to members requests and all the members together. So we, all of us on the Council appreciate your competent and thorough work. And we understand, colleagues, that given kind of the lateness that some of the requests for amendments have come in, frankly, there could be some an occasional typo or hiccup or technical issue that we may need to resolve between here and final adoption at the full council. And so I hope everyone will just keep that in mind and all of us understand that that may occur. Let's do the briefing on the striking amendment and then the amendment one and two, and then we'll put that before us. Councilmember one Right. Bower And then we'll take the briefings on three through nine after that. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Andrew Kim Council Central Staff I will be briefing the members on the striking amendment. Jeff will do the briefing on Councilmember McDermott's amendment and I will do the briefing on Councilmember Caldwell's amendment. So as for the striking amendment, you can either refer to the description on the amendment tracker, which we just distributed to all the members, or it's also included on page 44 of your agenda packet. It it has the same language. The striking amendment would first incorporate provisions of the proposed motion 2018 0266, which was before this committee input prior to meetings, and the provisions of that motion would be included in the statement of facts and the findings sections of the proposed ordinance. The second item it would eliminate reference to Interlocal agreement. The council's legal counsel has determined that this should be not an interlocal agreement but but another type of agreement, so be modified to comply with applicable law. It also leaves out that Jay Ritch thumbs up. All right, counsel for the parties. Okay with that. Thirdly, it also leaves blank the percentage allocations. And as you mentioned, Mr. Chair, those percentage allocations would be filled in by the two amendments that will proceed. The striking amendment briefing. It would also modify attachment eight, which is the funding agreement to do a couple of things. It would allow the transfer of lodging tax to end by 2043. It would allow a 30 day review period for counsel, if any amendment to the funding agreement to either extend the number of years of the transfer or the amount of the transfer. And then the counsel would have a a 30 day review period to to review those changes and also includes some indemnification provisions to protect the county. And lastly, it would also modify amendment number six to the financing agreement, which is attachment B to the proposed ordinance. That would require if the fee were to request for any advances, the budget director would determine that such an advance would be reasonable, complies with the county's financial debt obligations, debt policies and would not adversely affect the county's bond rating. And if the counsel did not object. Back to the budget director's recommendation within 45 days, then the funds can be can be advanced. That concludes my briefing for the striking amendment, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Does any member have a question about the striking amendment one, those technical and legal changes? All right. I don't see any question. And we'll brief from amendments one and two. The First Amendment is is actually listed as number two in the in the amendment tracker. Customer calls. This amendment is reached on the second page of the amendment tracker document. So the Councilmember Caldwell's amendment would allocate 37 and a half percent to for culture. It would allocate 50% to the the affordable housing bucket, and of which 46.5% of that would go to projects for transit oriented development. Transit oriented development, workforce housing and three and a half percent would go to support homeless youth services. The remaining 12 and a half percent would go to tourism promotion, of which would be contributed to the debt service. Payments for the Building for Culture Program Bonds and other of the remaining after the debt service have been paid after the allocation to the debt service payments. 18 and a half percent to the the PFG. 24.4% to the Seattle Southside Regional Tourism Authority, 55.5% to visit Seattle and the remaining 1.6% to the Special Events Center Public Facilities District for the Shaw Center. The amendment also request the executive to transmit future legislation related to the Seattle Southside Regional Tourism Authority and to the Seattle allocations . And it would also modify Attachment A, which is the funding agreement with the DFT to reflect the allocation changes. OC. Questions on Councilmember Caldwell's Amendment. Councilmember Gossett. Andrew. Thank you. Andrew When you use when we use terms like transit oriented development, does that mean all the money that we use this 46.5% of the money could only go to housing projects centered around sound transit sites. The specific language is actually I'll it here is to support transit oriented development that the funds are actually going to the Department of Community and Human Services to support transit oriented development, including projects that preserve or develop workforce housing and ongoing services. But do all the work force housing that is developed have to be built close and proximity of transit facilities? Councilman Got it. For the record, jeff, mayor and council staff, the state law definition of a transit center is quite broad. It's basically anything, any facility that's owned by a transit agency, a bus stop right away. So it can be interpreted much more broadly then I think you were concerned about only being able to build near sound transit facilities. Right? So it's much broader than that. It's much broader, but it would have to be built on land that was purchased to facilitate transit. No, it just needs to be in proximity to a transit facility. So I think within a half mile of a bus stop or something. And bus stops are included. Yeah. In the under the state and under the state definition, I wouldn't. All right. Before we have our final vote, would you share that language with me off line? Absolutely. Thank you. Mr. Chair. If I may, it might be helpful for the members to see the dollar allocation for this particular. I just got. To ask you that. Where do we find those? So in the amendment packet, I apologize. We didn't number these with. Us as just the same. Page numbers. That's continuous. But if you flip through the agenda packet maybe after the seventh eighth amendment to begins. And then in Amendment two, in the last page of the Amendment two, there is a table that shows the allocation in the dollar amounts as proposed by. Said page four of Amendment two on the front. All right. So it's amendment to this one. It has four signatures on it. Councilmember Caldwell's councilmember up the Grove, myself and Councilmember Gossett. And on page four of that amendment is a chart and to the effect statement. Okay. Thank you. And so. Mr. Kim, for the record, this is the amendment that would give here. It's because of, I think, the changing forecast, 26.4 million to the public facilities district, and that's currently here. Okay. And then for those of us for those of you following along that don't have the paperwork as a maybe, I'll maybe I'll summarize the box here. Well, you tell you what. Why don't we ask you to do that? Okay. You're in the big box. Mr. Kim. Would you like me to recite the dollar amount? Yeah, I think for. For the record and for everybody. So we're all on the same page. So we understand we're doing. Go ahead and give us the dollar amounts. Sure. So for Councilmember Caldwell's this amendment, we would allocate 449 494 million to for culture about. That's the minimum under the set. That's the minimum, correct. Approximately $46 million for homeless youth prevention and approximately 600,000,610 million to a transit oriented development. Affordable workforce housing, $22 million for the to pay the debt service for the building for culture program. And we've already spent that. That's on a choice we're making today. We've made that choice. That's correct. $26.4 million to, as you mentioned, 2.3 million to the special event center, the Shaw facility, $34.8 million to the Seattle Southside Regional Tourism Authority, and 79 million to visit Seattle. And these these totals will be allocated from 2021 to 2043. All right. And those are not net present value dollars. That's an estimate of the actual dollars over that period, 2021 to 2043. That's correct. All right. Any questions on the substance of this amendment? All right. I think we understand it. Thank you, Councilmember Caldwell's. Let's turn to Amendment One, which we're calling the McDermott Baldacci amendment. That's the two names I have on it. Jeff, are you going to lead us through this one? Thank you, Mr. Chair. So if you want to based on your amendment packet, this is the the first page of the amendment packet. And if you skip to page five is where the effect statement starts. And so that's where I'll start the description of the amendment. And then you can also follow along on the first page of the the amendment tracker. So this amendment would first it establishes the 2018 and with the forecast that was just adopted in August as the baseline forecast. So it and that's important now to be read through. So it establishes that set and it establishes it in Attachment C, which I believe is on a second packet in front of you of three pages. And it's attachment C is the second page where this shows the current estimates for the lodging tax revenues from 2021, 2023. So 37 and a half percent of that would go to for culture. And I need to ask if I'm sorry but this oh if forecast is the August one is a councilmember Caldwell's amendment was based on a different forecast. No, it's on the same number. We're talking apples to apples in terms of the numbers. Okay. Thank you. So continuing on to page six, then 37 and a half percent of that forecast would would go to DC to support transit oriented development in housing preservation projects and services for homeless youth. And then 25% would go to tourism promotion and services. So the building for culture bond programs and it would also I'm looking here. Looks like we need to clarify that that part of that 25% also would go to housing projects. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. It's if you're looking on page six and you see that on your line, numbers 113, 2 to 120, there's a bulletin list of how the allocations go. And it's so it should go 43 of the 25% of funds eligible for tourism. 4840 3.8% would go to the party as a static 1 million annually would be reserved a year for eight years for tourism promotion. And then any remaining funds would be allocated to DC agents for the same housing and homeless purposes. Then the amendment removes the allocation to the special event center, the shower center, and then it it contemplates events. If, if the forecast if lightning tax revenues come in above the array for forecast, how that excess revenue would be allocated . And that's in that scenario anything above the year with the forecast 10% would would go to housing 42 and a half percent would go for tourism promotion. 37 and a half would go to Fort Culture and then the remaining 10% would be transferred to the BFD to for maintenance purposes. The amendment also modifies the funding agreement to reflect the the transfers to the fee. And then the amendment also states the Council's intent to request the executive to issue $100 million in additional bonds to be invested in workforce housing as soon as possible. And lastly, the amendment states the intent of the Council to request the executive transmit by February 28th, 2019, an expenditure plan for allocation of affordable housing funds not already programed in the 2016 transit or any bond allocation plan. And if you look down at the table at the bottom of page seven, this this shows that the dollar amounts there was that. I guess I would also with its caveat that if you were to essentially so that we're comparing apples to apples if you pull back if you're looking at column the rate column as tourism promotion at the very bottom, it says the affordable workforce housing, your transit needs prevention is 165 million. If you pull that into the other affordable workforce housing bucket, that represents 50% of the 19 tax allocation. So I think it was represented in that way in that customer clause amendment and just want to make sure that that's clear that those allocations are nearly the same. So again, it would be the 37 and a half percent then for arts and culture, the funds for the for the Tierney bond allocation plan and then that the building for culture debt service here would get the 22.3 million, which we've already talked about being programed. The public facility district would get a total of $135 million, $8 million for tourism promotion and then the the housing funds that I just described. Okay. Questions or dialog, Councilor McDermott. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And Mr. Mayor, I just want to drill in on that apples to apples, to be clear with you and with my colleagues on the dais, that the two effect statements we've gone over, the one for the Caldwell's amendment and as printed for my amendment are not laid out apples to apples. But in fact, if you move the $165 million from the tourism column, which is identified as being spent on housing, the total amount being spent on housing would be 661 million, as opposed to the Caldwell's amendment. Also 50%. 659 There must be a rounding error in the right in the. Yes, but. But I want to be clear that the housing column is 50% and 60. 61. Absolutely. That's correct. Thank you, Councilmember McDermott. And other questions on Amendment one. No, Councilmember Caldwell's. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And just again, we it would be best if we had side by side with the two amendments. We don't we didn't have time for that. But I want to make sure. That it's understood that I agree with Councilmember McDermott's note here, but the real difference since I read it appears to be in the amount that would go to terrorism. $8 million in this proposal of Councilmember McDermott at all. And that would be over $1 million each year for eight years. And then if the revenue forecast increases, there could be additional funds. Mine, on the other hand, would put in $138 million roughly into tourism and include funding for the Showalter Center and include funding for Visit Seattle, which is also visit Seattle, King County. It's under the Seattle King County Visitors and Tourism Bureau, Convention Bureau, and also for South Side Seattle. Am I correct? That's correct, except for the total figure for the Tories. And it's about 114 million. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Caldwell's other questions, Councilor Yvonne Wright, would you please put the ordinance before the committee. And move it off? Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Adoption of proposed ordinance 2018 0374. And I'd like to speak to why I introduced it. Please go ahead. My support for this measure is both emotional and cerebral. Many people in this room, including my friend Louis Gossett, probably remember Stadium. Well, for those of us in Pierce County. It was a long drive to watch the Seattle Rainiers and also the West Coast Negro Association team, because two teams played in the old stadium in those days , and two teams were teams that my family drove all the way from Tacoma, Washington, up to watch because it was a family event. And I look at today's Mariners and the operation that resides over at Safeco Field, and it's still a family event. It's a place where the families and majority of families can go to for a reasonable price. It's also a place where the community can enter and center their activities. Not recent, not just recently. In the last 30 days, one of our hometown bands raised millions of dollars to protect the homeless and help the homeless. The West, the outer band of my dad. So my feelings towards baseball is both emotional and cerebral. I would like to point out a few things here about the economy, because we should be talking about numbers. The most important number we're talking about is 25 years, 25 years. We're facing our substance on a lot of hope for statistics. Since World War Two. There have been 11 periods of economic expansion in the United States. The longest was 120 months between March of 91 and March 2001. The average is 63 months. We are currently in the 100 lap month of this economic expansion. There's a lot of telltale signs out there that this economy may be in trouble right now. If you talk to most of the credit unions and associations around this country and the state, car loans are falling behind one and two months. These are canaries in the land mines of problems in our economy because clearly there are some problems in that overall economy. We're seeing it here with the problems and homelessness. I also recognize that there are changes taking place in the industry that were facing so much of our foundation on. Mr. Chair, we're basing a lot of our income on a changing industry. The hospitality industry has changed more in the last ten years than in the last 100 years. Airbnb and other changes have affected the bottom line of most hotels. And just like the taxi industry has changed dramatically because of Lyft, Uber technology is changing the equation by which we evaluate and predict income. And so much of our projections here are based upon what was and not so much as what is happening today. And that disturbs me. Moreover, in this particular region, Mr. Chair, Amazon has been a major factor in our growth. Sometime relatively soon, Amazon is going to talk about H2 headquarters, too. That's going to change the dynamic in this region because we have been a magnet for so many people looking for jobs around the country, around the world . That's going to change dramatically. I also see some other changes that are taking place that are not so good. Major League Baseball attendance is down. It's down. The worst in 15 years is changing dramatically. This particular franchise, the Mariners, had a good year in the stands, but that's not going to last. And I point out, unfortunately for many of us who love baseball, that a number of changes are taking place within that lineup that does not augur well for the future. Felix has had his worst year. We see a lot of major problems on the horizon and a lot of need for that franchise to make some changes in its own lineup. That said, it has been a good neighbor. A lot of people have rejected for some reason, to me wrongly, about the current ownership. So I want to make sure we remember the changes that have taken place in this region. Many of us, my friend Lori Garcia in particular, remember, you know, we had a guy named Jeff Simonian who always threatened to move the franchise. We had Sam Shulman out of California owning our sonics. We had George Arduous from San Diego at one time loaning to the Mariners. And, of course, we all remember Ken Bering threatening to move with the Seahawks and trying to move them down to California. Our current ownership is an interesting group. I looked at the website and then I tried to trace on Wikipedia some of these folks. John Stanton. Newport High School. Father worked at Boeing. Chris Larson. Lakeside High School. Local person. Buck Ferguson. President of the Student Body as Sammamish High School. Buck Ferguson. We have people here who have also married well and very lucky. Jeff Raikes marry Tricia. Trisha is a local Seattle person. And Jeff and Trisha have done a lot for this community. These are not out-of-state, out of touch people. Let me point out something here. The Stanton family has an incredible foundation that supports young people in education across the board in this region. Trisha and Jeff Raikes have been involved in their own foundation, creating jobs and helping young people. Moreover, Jeff, as you know, ran the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. But Ferguson and his family, Howard Lincoln. These are people. Rob Glazier. These are people who don't always agree politically, but they agree on one thing. This is their hometown. This is their team. And they're going to put money back in this community. And lastly, I would point out in this area, Mr. Chair, as United Way has been one of the bedrocks of this community in dealing with homelessness. United Way. In the last decade. Four of their. Chairs of their money drives have been current for folks involved with the Mariners an and Dan Wilson. Jeff Raikes and Tricia Howard, Lincoln and John Stanton have all led the economic drives to make United Way work, and there is no more stronger organization in all our regions than United Way and trying to help people. So I think some people have kind of characterized these people as being individuals who are out for themselves. They took a high risk, those of us who were involved in to buy this franchise because this economy was not that good. And in that in that time frame, they took a risk to buy this franchise. They put money back in as they move forward. They made it not only a baseball franchise that's open to the families. And it's one of the last good bargains for families in this region. But more importantly, they've also me at the center of activity where they can bring together music groups and other groups to raise money, whether it's medical teams International, which has their annual charity event there. It's a major center of our community in our region. So when we try to deal with the issues, Mr. Chair, I think we should recognize the important number. We're making a commitment of 25 years, 25 years. The economy is changing. Technology is changing. This region is changing. And so it's important to make sure that we recognize that this should be a bargain of agreement, not taking advantage of of somebody else. There should be an opportunity to work together on an agreement that permits the Mariners to continue being good neighbors and permit us to do what we said about when we created the PFG, the Public Facilities District, which owns the operation between the taxpayers. They own that building and we have an obligation to maintain that building and maintain this great relationship as good neighbors. And I hope during the same time frame that Councilmember Goslin are old enough to be here when World Series comes to Seattle. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Councilman Ron Wright Bauer. Why don't we proceed to the striking amendment and get that before us, and then we'll take Councilmember Caldwell's amendment and Councilmember McDermott, Belushi's amendment as our Vice-Chair. Councilman Carlos, would you put the striking amendment forth? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mean, the striking amendment one. All right. We've been briefed on this. Other questions or comments on it all in favor of s one say i i any opposed. And i'm. Sorry we got to I'm sorry we're too early on the voting, aren't we? Yes. Thank you, Mr. McDermott. All right. That's before us. Now we'll turn to the amendments. Councilmember Cole Wells, we'll start with you. I've conferred with Councilman McDermott, the lead sponsor on the other one, and we have agreed on an order here and his graciously agreed to allow Councilman Raquel Welch to present hers. And she got it in the last week. And then we'll turn to the other one. So Councilmember Caldwell's. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move amendment number two. All right. That's before us. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And to everybody here on the dais, my colleagues and all the staff, particularly, who have done so much work, I thank you all. And to all the people here, the fans and others, I think we all recognize that the Mariners are very important now to our community. And my proposal really is not an either or proposal. I do not offer this proposal to debate whether the Mariners are important to our community. I believe they are. I also do not believe this is the debate over the ownership. I think they're are outstanding. And I want the Mariners to succeed and to have that World Series hopefully before. Not too far away. Not too far away. I meant I also agree with my colleague, council member Van Ryk Bauer that baseball is been emotional and cerebral. I feel the same way and I was very pleased and really thrilled when I took part in the legislature for the solution to have the stadium built. I was an integral part of that discussion and proudly voted for it in special session called by Governor Lourey. And I also though believe that this is not a mutually exclusive proposition that's before us. I believe and I count myself here that we can be supportive of the Mariners. We can be supportive of their their success. We can be supportive, I believe, of taxpayers contributing to the stadiums maintenance needs. But I also believe that there has to be a line drawn somewhere, and that's what my proposal reflects. And you can look at the numbers here and we'll go over those. But I think equally important is that we are talking about public facility. It's been stated that as the public owns the stadium through the public facilities district, that we should contribute to the maintenance needs. And that was just said by my dear and beloved colleague, council member Vaughan Wright Barwick. And that's totally in sync with what I believe, that we should contribute to the maintenance needs. But unfortunately the proposal that is in the underlying motion that was transmitted by the county executive to us goes beyond the maintenance needs. And I have given distributed to my colleagues a table here that shows at the bottom exactly what I am talking about. The identified needs by the Mariners is for $184 million, roughly 180,000,179 through 189, whatever it would be. And that reflects upgrade improvements. And my thoughts are reflected in the bottom part of this chart, that there is 184,000 in upgrade improvements. If we take the upgrade improvements away, I'm sorry, $160 million of upgrade improvements, if we subtract that from the requested amount that send the proposal, the underlying proposal of 160 million, we come up with $24 million in maintenance, basic maintenance needs. I think that's fair for the public to absorb. If, on the other hand, there are upgrades, I do not believe the public should be contributing the funds for those upgrades. And my proposal would put money into affordable housing and youth homelessness prevention instead of 50% of this entire proposal. Now, the key here is we're talking about a publicly owned facility, but it's very different than the publicly owned facility that we're all sitting in right now. There is no question that the public owns the King County courthouse yet. Are we discussing upgrades to that maintenance? There is that going on. But the real difference is we're talking about another publicly owned facility that is operated and supposedly maintained by a for profit business that I love that for profit business. But what don't we get? We do not get property taxes paid by the Mariners or by the PFG. None that is calculated to be about 5.8 to $6 million a year that we do not get as property tax payers. And I think of my constituents and many here on the council itself who do pay property taxes and they've been going up and it's hard for many people to pay for them, and many are forced to sell their homes and move farther out away because they cannot afford the property tax that's here. So that's part of it. According to what the Mariners have proposed and have not yet signed, the lease agreement containing is that they will not pay. The public will not get profit sharing. The public will not get anything as it stands now, from selling the naming rights for the stadium, which will come up the first day of 2019 if a lease agreement is signed and the public does not get from the Mariners fair market rent. Right now it's about $1.5 million a year, going up to 2 million under the new lease agreement and will well increase beyond that. But it's very, very low. We don't get that money, the public, for a publicly owned facility. I believe and I trust the Mariners ownership puts the money back into the stadium. I have no question about that. But my point is here. Why should we be taking on more needs of the Mariners, particularly beyond the maintenance needs, the basic maintenance needs? Now, we could look at it and say for those in the public who believe that the Mariners, the stadium, we should pay for all of these requested funds, $180 million approximately over the 25 years. Then you'll be supportive of the underlying proposal or of Councilwoman McDermott's, and I'll do cheese amendment. If you believe that the Mariners ownership, the P.A. should get nothing, then you will be very unhappy with the $2,526 million that I have in my amendment. If you think the public should contribute some, then you will like my amendment. Clearly, for me, what we need is to find the right balance. And I don't think contributing $180 million when we have a fabulous stadium that just needs maintenance. Yes. Needs repair. Yes. Needs upgrades to make it competitive for being in the top ten or top one third of all stadiums in the country. But yet, if you look at some of the other teams around the country, I know the Dodgers, the Boston Red Sox, and there's another team they own. They don't ask for any more money. Yet the Dodgers were awarded the All-Star Game coming up, I think in 2020. They can be done. I maintain we do not need to put public money into the stadium but will go along with the basic maintenance needs. This is fair and I think that we should go ahead with my proposal. And the one last thing I want to say is I'm very supportive of keeping funding in tourism. In fact, I think it's an insult to say that, as reflected in the other striking amendment, that we will put an $8 million for tourism promotion and the rest will go to the stadium stadiums. Important tourism is what the whole hotel motel tax is about, mainly paid for by tourists to our region. And I was absolutely opposed to the legislature's eliminating the state tourism office years ago. Were they, as far as I know, were the only state in the country that does not have a tourism office? Tourism promotion is essential. We want people to come and stay at our hotels and motels. We want that tax revenue to be generated, which we can use here. The Mariners are definitely a big draw, but should we be sending so much money to a stadium and so little for tourism? That makes no sense to me. I find it insulting and I think we should include funding, which my measure does for the show. Whereas center for at Seattle King County and for Seattle South Side, they need the funds. We want to promote tourism. I've gone on way too long, but I think my proposal makes sense and I ask for your support. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank you. Councilmember Cole Wells, council member of the Grove. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it's remarkable in a way that Councilmember Cole Wells and I can get literally on the same page, because when we were in Olympia, we were on very different approaches to stadiums. I'm one of those that just at my core believes that the public financing of professional sports teams is a racket and not in the public interest. It's just fundamentally I've looked at there was actually a study of studies, a national economic journal did looked at all of the economic studies about the economic benefits to two local governments of investing in investing public dollars in professional sports stadiums. And almost unanimously, the conclusion was it did not pencil out economically for the region. One thing that stood out in my mind was a comparison of the economic benefits of a professional sports stadium like Safeco or comparable to a mid-sized shopping mall. Sure, it creates jobs and some benefits, but why aren't we then investing 100 and some million dollars in Westfield South Center Mall and their infrastructure and parking to improve the shopper experience? And I know sports bring something to our quality of life, but for a lot of people, shopping malls due to the Coca-Cola Company through their Diet Coke brings a lot of joy to my life. My colleague knows, you know, a lot of businesses create jobs and. Product placement there. Councilmember Dunn, get the Mountain Dew up. So we have a lot of businesses, large and small, throughout the region that are creating jobs and economic benefits that don't have their infrastructure subsidized. So why then am I willing to support this amendment that does include $25 million towards Safeco Field. It's because the rest of the investments are targeted in a way that I think makes sense. The money is from reducing the amount to Safeco would go to affordable housing, but importantly it also maintains the the remaining tourism dollars. We heard from some small businesses in SeaTac that could benefit from investments in tourism to create an international market. I don't think investing in stadiums is good economic development, but I do believe that direct tourism marketing can boost our economy in a much more broad based way that helps more businesses in more parts of the county. And our regional tourism authorities know how to do that. They're proven. And in this amendment, the tourism promotion authority in South King County called the Seattle South Side Regional Tourism Authority would get about $1.5 million a year to support small businesses throughout King County. And as someone who represents the most tourism dependent district, Sea-Tac airports in the heart of the district I represents, all those service workers benefit from the economic activity down there. This amendment would provide the funding to support that kind of economic development that's more broad based benefits, more people, and would include the opportunity for those communities to invest in strategies like an international market. So that's what led me to be willing to compromise for some some funding for Safeco is because this also recognizes the importance of investing in affordable housing. That's a public benefit that benefits everyone. It invests a reasonable amount in direct tourism marketing, which I believe is a public benefit that benefits more people. And for that reason, I'm willing to support a little bit of funding for Safeco Field and come in to Councilmember Caldwell's for her, her efforts to pull together a compromise. Then Councilmember up the Grove, Councilmember Gossett. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to indicate my support for Councilwoman Caldwell Caldwell's amendment on Councilman after girl's last point. I do believe that compromise is important, mostly because in American politics it's very difficult to get anything done if you're not as a politician, willing to compromise on some key strategic issues. And this is one that I think it's appropriate to compromise on. And that's why I supported the. I'm willing to vote for and support the 25 million going to the Mariners. However, I'm among those in the audience and in the broader community that believes after studying this matter and listening to a lot of people walking down the inner city streets of my district, reading some of the letters that came in to us from everybody from Joe the Plumber to Joe the banker, the two people who voted no on the property board on the general proposal. And I concluded that the Seattle Mariners have and will continue to have no problem whatsoever ever paying for the repair and upgrades on the Safeco or whatever we decide to call the stadium by name in the future, because they're going to make some money on that. Councilmember Caldwell's indicated that they can make anywhere from 2 to 4 million for 2 to 4 million per watt. Oh, you put a name, right? I'm sorry. I'm talking about the name. Yeah. A year. Anywhere from a small amount of money. All the way up to maybe 50 to $100 million over a period of 25 years. At any rate, when Mr. Rivera, representing the Mariners, spoke to us, I did not remember him talking about the ancillary revenues that I learned about later that the Mariners receive and will continue to receive and buy ancillary revenues. I mean, things like national TV revenues, which is a substantial amount of money, a major League Baseball revenue sharing, where all the teams share a certain amount of money that was not counted when they're mariners, talking about the money they have available to continue to pay their rent at our stadium and our local TV revenues. I believe that the Mariners, either owners of Root TV or one of their major investors don't routes TV and they do quite well from the revenues garnered on local TV. And this year, one of the councilmembers mentioned a little earlier that even though participation of fans is down at many stadiums at the Mariners Stadium, we've had more fans going to games this year than we have had in several years, maybe ever. It's about estimated to be 2.5 million. That's a lot of money. And also came out at our first public meeting that we had that if the Mariners just charged up only 2.5 million people, 2 to $3 more on ticket prices, that would come out to more than $180 million over 25 years. So I have not been able to find any reason why the Mariners would have to turn objectively or reasonably or even profit wise to the general public to help them pay for upgrades and repairs of our the People's Stadium, particularly. And that's the last one I want to make. When they went to the BFD last year to begin to talk about another 25 year lease, they walked into the rooms that we we have decided only one side of the equation, the Mariners, that we're not going to share profit with you all anymore. And for the 18, 20 years that we have had the agreement they've been sharing with with the public development facility district a certain amount of their profits, they said no more. We will not share our profits. So when I add that they're going to keep all the profits from the baseball and they're going to do that over the last seven years from the ancillary revenues that they get, they had a 40% increase amount of funds that they've gotten from 2018 back to 2011. And one of the testifiers today, I don't know where he did his research, but I'm going to quote him anyway. He said, It's estimated that the value of the Mariners is now $1.5 billion, the franchise 1.5 billion. They could, you know, bond on a little bit of that money and pay a 180 million that they think they're going to need over the last 25. That's 25 years for repairs and upgrades and easily get the money. But he said that over the next seven years that the value of the Mariners will go from 1.5 billion to 7 billion. I don't know what he's based on, but I do think it's reasonable for us to take into consideration that man, that the wealth of the Mariners ownership of this excellently run franchise that does and I said this at the Regional Policy Committee, we Piedmont. Right. Barbara allowed him the opportunity to talk about what they do in the community, the Mariners and the Seahawks. And they made a strong case that they do a lot. But any corporate entity that operates and a big urban. Diverse country like ours should be. It's good business to get along well and contribute to various projects for the people or for our hospitals or for Little League as they do. We applaud that. All my colleagues have said that their blogger, but it simply is not necessary for them to tell the PFA and then tell the rest of us that we may not sign the next 25 year contract and that the public, the rank and file taxpayer hook us up with another $180 million to pay for some of our repairs and upgrades is absolutely not necessary, not one iota of evidence that's presented that it's any reason why this particular franchise would need to turn to the public in order to be able to reasonably survive in this community. Therefore, I will be joining Councilmember Caldwell's and others that plan to vote for him because I think that's the best strategy, the best goal in relationship to this issue that we should pursue at this time. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the time. Thank you for your remarks. Councilmember Dorset Council Chair McDermott. Thank you, Mr. Chair. There is a lot I like about Councilmember Caldwell's amendment. That's before us over 660 million reasons they like it. Every dollar, almost half of the overall hotel motel tax invested in affordable housing and homeless youth and homeless youth services. It is the other half of those funds that I desire another balance for and believe that this proposal before us doesn't strike the right balance for maintaining a publicly owned facility and ensuring that there's a long term lease in place for that facility. So I do ask my colleagues to vote no on this so we can take up an alternative in a few minutes on that on the balance of the other house. Thank you. Chair McDermott other comments a councilor up the grove. We get roll call votes today. All will be roll call votes. Yes. I'm speaking for myself on the amendment. I've joined as a co-sponsor council member Von Reich Bauer. My friend talked about baseball being emotional and cerebral for him, and I can relate to that. I'm a casual fan. I remember the free or at least significantly reduced price tickets they would give to kids like me. Middle school in Renton if you got decent grades and sitting in the kingdom when there were just a few thousand fans, I think six or 7000 might have been a strong attendance. Then in 1985, I remember the emotion that I felt sitting in the 300 section after waiting in line for hours to see the October 8th, 1995 game where Edgar Martinez left field hit, brought home Ken Griffey Jr, and the team piled on on base and what that did for the city. And so those emotions are strong and they're joyful and they're fun and they help make a community. But I also in this job have to apply as my brain, my cerebral analysis, and I come out in a different place when I do that on this proposed set of deal terms and funding. And on that, I laid out for myself a three part test when considering this proposal. Number one, do they need the money? Number two, if they need it, how much? And number three, what are competing priorities? I just after listening and meeting and analyzing, cannot pass the first test on this proposal that they need the money. I think this is a different time in professional sports. This is not 1968 when King County voters passed the forward thrust bond to build the domed stadium for King County. We are talking about a franchise of private industry here that is worth an estimated value. A billion and a half dollars B billion are the economics of professional sports have changed dramatically. And I think you're seeing more and more around the country, less public participation in these partnerships. And most recently here in Seattle, with the key arena deal to bring back a basketball team and to bring to Seattle a National Hockey League team. I just think that the economics have changed and I don't believe that the case has been made for a significant public investment into this facility. Given those economics, maybe it could have been made. But I haven't seen it. And in fact, with respect to the transparency on this deal, it's less. The books aren't open. I will tell you, this county government requires a greater showing of need with more transparency and more audit obligations and more performance metrics on a $10,000 grant to a human services organization. Julie Ostrowski Than we are requiring on this deal. And it bothers me, obviously. Oh, sorry. That's the emotion taking over the cerebral. But I don't believe they've said that. They've shown the need. Given that they haven't. Shown the need, the amount. Council Member Cole Wells And working with our central staff has identified an amount, assuming that they show the need. That is reasonable to me in the 2526 million and I can support her amendment because that is the unmet need from club and other resources, not counting for those upgrade costs. Right, the maintenance costs. That is the logic behind her number. I still struggle with that because the third part of my test, the competing needs. I will tell you as I've sat on this dyas and worked for five years with my community, I've been told we don't have enough money to house every veteran in this county. Not enough resources. The county executive office has set it. My colleagues have said it. We don't have enough money to fund the job training programs for homeless youth that we need. We don't have enough money to fix up Harborview Hall to house a couple of hundred folks on a on a regular basis. We don't have enough money. And these are all resources that this lodging tax can be used for. We don't have enough money, Mr. Dombrowski, to fund the completion of the Shoreline Historical Museum. Sorry. You're going to have to go up and ask folks living on Social Security for $25 contributions to finish it. It's just the competing needs here. To me, if you get to that third part, prevail. And so for those reasons, I've become very skeptical of this particular proposal. I think Councilmember Caldwell's proposal is a significant improvement, and I want to thank her personally for using that cerebral power. Despite strong emotion, she's a longstanding supporter of baseball in this town. She took a tough vote in Olympia in the legislature after King County voters said no to come up with a different deal and get it built. But she was an early sponsor of the legislation, and she listened. She she analyzed and she changed her mind. And in this business, that takes a lot of courage. I'm really honored to serve with her on this council, and I'm pleased to support her amendment today. See no further comments on this. I will ask Marco to call the roll on Councilmember Caldwell's amendment, which is joined by a councilor up the Grove. Councilman, gossip myself. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Bertucci. Councilmember Dunn. Councilmember Dodson. All right. Councilmember Coleman. Councilmember member. Councilmember McDermott. No. Councilman on the ground. Councilman of Andre Bauer. No, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the vote is for EIS. Five nos does not carry. Councilmember McDermott. Thank you, Mr. Charlie. Move adoption of Amendment One. That is before us. Go ahead. Thank you. As I've said from the very beginning of this process. Councilmember, I apologize if I may interrupt. The Amendment one actually includes the exhibits, which is another handout that that's been distributed. So you should move it with both the Amendment one and the exhibit. That's what that's the motion I heard. Thank you. What the. As I've said from the very beginning of this process, this is a significant opportunity for our region. And I'm pleased that we're advancing a compromise proposal that invests an unprecedented amount of money towards housing and homeless youth services. It's a compromise, compromises art loved by. In this case, I don't think anybody within the equation but people who elected us to make the hard decisions. And this is one of those. But I believe this amendment strikes a good a strong balance. The proposal is outlined the base the baseline allocation as established by the forecast in August. 37.5% for arts and heritage, as is required by the state statute. 50%, fully 50% for affordable housing and homeless youth services. Debt service and the building for culture bonds will be paid from 2021 through 2030, amounting to $22.3 million. A tourism phone will be established with $1,000,000 allocated for eight years, and the remaining funds will be allocated to the PFG to the amount of $135 million for that publicly owned facility. And beyond the August forecast. Beyond that baseline funds would be invested 37.5% for arts and heritage, as is required by the state statute. 10% of that of that growth for housing. Recognizing that housing is receiving the first dollars and the stability in the the baseline, 42.5% of growth would be dedicated to tourism, realizing that the amount they're receiving in the base and their stake in growth needs to be larger in 10% of the growth would be allocated to the public facilities district. Additionally, we're authorizing the executive to go ahead and bond $100 million for affordable housing right now because we have the need, as we know in our community right now. And additionally, I support language that will come and a subsequent amendment requiring the Mariners to enter into a labor neutrality agreement that must be part of a final deal so that jobs with the team that leases the stadium remain good, healthy jobs for the workers at this public facility. I appreciate the support expressed from the Martin Luther King Junior County Labor Council for this approach, and I'm glad that the Mariners are looking working toward long term stability for their workers who are already organized and are hardworking people who deserve to maintain those those jobs. I ask for my colleagues to join me in support of this compromise. Customer Baldacci, the co-sponsor. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to add a few words, the themes of the day seem to be balance and priorities. Where's the correct balance of how we spend this particular available money in the hotel motel tax? It's it's an interesting it's an interesting part of money in that it has been specified by state statute. It flows through King County, but it's been specified what it can be spent on. And I just want to be sure that everybody following along knows that this isn't just open for affordable housing. It's not even opened in here for homeless sheltering. And that's that's unfortunate to me because I've been working very hard in my district on the east side of Lake Washington, try to build the first ever men's permanent homeless shelter for a number of years. And we also are trying to develop a family and women's shelter on the east side, and we could use the funding for that. This funding is not available for that. It is available to address our biggest priority here recently, and that is our housing crisis in District six that I represent, that the cost of housing are going up so fast that we're in danger of not just becoming unaffordable to people making working wages, but. People making middle incomes and even lower upper incomes because it's becoming very exclusive and it's very challenging to afford a home where I was able to buy a home 20 years ago with my family. That's why I think that the priority in this proposal, as in the last proposal to spend fully one half of this available resource on affordable housing is the right priority. And we stretched very hard to be able to do that. It is this will not do the minimum I heard in public testimony, do more than the minimum. This is more than the minimum. We are talking about over $650 million being made available here for affordable housing. I'll also share that as co-chair of the Regional Affordable Housing Task Force. That is actually a drop in the bucket of the total need. We have a number that we we studied earlier this year at the task force of 145,000 units affordable to 80% of area median income or below necessary to meet the current gap in affordable housing. That's today. If people stopped moving here today and they're not going to stop moving here. In fact, over 20 years, the projection is 245 or 250,000 units. Multiply that by 2 to 400000 a unit that you would expect the county to contribute among all of the other taxing entities that would contribute. And you get up into the many, many billions of dollars needed for affordable housing pretty quickly. So this no matter what happens here today or in a week or two, we're not going to solve the problem, but we're making a pretty major downpayment towards addressing that problem. And I support that. I want to remind folks that this council took a vote last year to add housing as a new eligible service and capital. And I think it's capital as well for our formerly vets and and human services. LEVY Now vets, seniors and human services. And Councilmember McDermott and I, along with council members Gossett and Co Wells, voted for that to be a higher levy that would have put $21 million more into affordable housing every six years, you know, pending vote of the people. So we're working here to put money towards housing and affordability, and we're going to keep doing that no matter what happens with this this vote here today on the PFG and the stadium. I will say I was not here at the King County Council, nor was I in Olympia when there were votes taken to get into the business of having a publicly owned stadium. I did serve on the Bellevue City Council and I served on as mayor there for a period of time when we had a number of quiet discussions about whether to get into the business of helping to finance an NBA arena. A number of ownership groups or potential groups came to us and said, would would the city make a contribution to that sort of thing? And the reason you never heard about those discussions was because we never cared enough about them for it to become public, because I and others on that council felt that, you know, respectfully, that was not a business that we wanted to be in because we end up having discussions like this over time. We didn't feel that it was necessary for our economic development for us to do that. City was doing just fine. And so that's where I start. But I come here to the King County Council and King County Public. The public in King County owns a stadium. It exists. We own it. It's public whether we want it to be that way or not, it is. And so I support the idea of putting a reasonable amount of funding towards maintenance and even upgrade of the facility. And I will say that there's been a lot of talk about what the money goes to. I have a list of 20 year necessary maintenance estimates that adds up to 299 million for things like architectural upgrades to the interior and the exterior that are about paint and replacing expansion joints in the building envelope and structural repairs and the roof maintenance, the garage maintenance. This is not adding luxury suites. This is not adding brewpubs that. And it adds up to well over what we're proposing to put in to this today. So I think this is a reasonable investment of this money. As an aside or maybe not an aside. In our world today, there are so many things that tear us apart. So many things. We have divisiveness politically, culturally, socially, economically. And it is valuable to me that sports are something that can bring us together regardless. There are people that I can't talk to about politics. I have family members that I can't talk to about politics. But. I can talk to them all about baseball. We can all bemoan what happened yesterday. It's bad, it wasn't good. And we can we can bond over that. I was I thought the storm did great. Great. I did bond with friends over that storm. I had nothing bad to say about the storm. So and this is not just in the stadium. This isn't just about I can afford to go in and other people can't. There is a guy. He lives in Bellevue. He doesn't have a home. I run into him frequently. Maybe you do too. He likes to sit on the pedestrian boulevard between 110th Street and 108th hundreds. Anyway, over by the California Pizza Kitchen, I may get the streets wrong. And he has his radio. He plays the game. He puts out the scores. And I have had a number of conversations with that guy over the years. He has lobbied me as his mayor. He's a person who doesn't have a home. He wants to make sure that I know that the Safeway doesn't allow for people to microwave stuff in their in their food area. And it's hard for him to get a hot lunch for that reason. And this is a relationship that I've developed over the years as an elected representative of that guy that I wouldn't have without the fact that we started talking about the Mariners. It's a valuable thing to have a team in your community, and I think that that is an important contribution as well. The last thing I want to say about this proposal is to the folks here from the tourism industry. We need to do some work there. I feel that we kind of ran out of time to completely finish what we need to do with tourism. We did not get to address the cultural, commercial displacement issues that have risen up in this chamber because of the discussion we're having about the hotel motel tax. Those also need work. And I just want to commit to working on those between now and final passage to see if we can come up with something that makes sense in those regards. But I think on balance, this is where we need to be to start today and move forward to a final vote at council in a week or ten days. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman email dg other comments. Councilmember Von Rick. Bauer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Was wondering if somebody might be here from the County Executive Office, could answer some questions I have about current county housing allocations. Sure, I'm seeing the very capable April Putney coming forward with enthusiasm for a gentle grilling from Councilmember Von Reich Bar. Thank you very much. And April, thank you for being willing to be here today. You and I have discussed the biennium, the current biennium, and how much money is allocated for housing capital funds. Can you share that with the audience? Sure. For the record, April Putney here on behalf of the executive's office and for this current biennium, the county has allocated $82,550,422 towards housing capital. And that is to complete December at December 31st, 2018. Through the end of the year. So other $82,000 million that we've allocated, how much have we actually spent for housing? Around $42 million has been actually spent this year. Some of the money has been allocated, but not yet ready to be spent. Do you have any projections as we look towards next year? I know you and I once had an opportunity to discuss the next biennium and what is projected. The next biennium projection. With a vote day authorizing the $100 million, we would be projected to spend $184 million, 300,000. For capital, for housing. For capital for the biennium. And I won't repeat the number for the current buy in, which ends in a few months. How much money do we have left on the table there? $82 million has been allocated. Around $40 million has as yet to be spent, but it has already been allocated to specific projects. Thank you, it seems. CHAIR We don't have a willing we don't lack a revenue to spend. We just have to figure out a process to get this money into the into the. Floor in April. And it's very important, Richard, since I still have the microphone. To do. That, I want to recognize that fact that we have good intentions and we've also done good, but we haven't had the opportunity to expend all the money we've already allocated. And now, I don't know, we're going to spend $40 million between now and December 31st, 2018. But it appears to me that we need to have a program in place, not just good intentions. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If I might, April, I assume it is not executive Constantine's position that there's adequate funding for affordable housing needs in the county. We believe that more more funding is needed. Okay. And Karl's remark about your point is about the timing of the spending as I understood it. I've got a project list for you that can use it. And Councilmember Caldwell's has a question for Ms.. Putney and then Councilmember Goss. April. What would you like to have a seat? April, you are welcome to. Sign saying. Thank you, April. As I understand it, the executive's proposal is transmitted to the council, included quite a large amount for tourism promotion and the striking amendment before us does not. Could you comment on that? We've heard from Councilmember Balducci that more work is needed. I would say obviously, which is a figure that I think reflects the amount that contained in the executive's original motion is what's included in my amendment. Would you just comment on the need, as you, as the executive sees it, for adequate funding for tourism promotion, apart from. Well, we'd go to Safeco Field and absolutely. Thank you for that question. So the proposal puts our our first public dollars into housing, maintains an appropriate role in our publicly owned ballpark, and shifts the rewards of a booming economy onto the tours and tourism industry and executive applauds the approach. However, as you've just stated, there is an inadequate investment in tourism and we look forward to working with the Council on on getting that number higher. Thank you. Sure. Thank you. Mr.. Can you say that it shifts the rewards? The part about. Shifts the rewards of a booming economy on to tourism and that and that's the piece that was described about the revenue that comes in receipts that come in above the forecast. Okay. So you weren't saying that by shifting all of the tourism money. No, no, no. To something else is giving them a reward? No, not at all. What I'm saying. Councilmember Garcia, thank you for your patience. Yeah, I know. We all jumped in ahead of you. I'm always very patient. That's true. A few minutes ago, Councilman Maribel Duterte called the amount of money that we want to spend on affordable housing for those who have incomes at 80% of average family household income in King County and under call the amount Athens. When people like spoke. He thought that the fact that we do in this current biennium and allocated 80 million for housing as something substantial and he got the executive point out that they've allocated all 80 million but they've only been we've only been able to spend so far this year a little over half of that amount in paying people, not knowing the, you know, the true reality. That is a very small amount of money. Yes, you. Would think that maybe we have a lot of money for housing and we're not even spending that. And I wanted to indicate to the last day not answer that $80 million for housing in King County when we need 144,000 units. That would cost. That will cost us billions of dollars to build. And we're nowhere close to that amount. The amount that the authorities in our budget are, the amount that is in this small amount from the tourist tax that we're discussing today. But the amounts are small amount. And I don't know how we're served by saying that Connie haven't yet been able to actually start building $40 million worth of housing that is already allocated money for everybody knows that government or private sector, you get the money and it takes some time actually build the housing. And so I just didn't want people to get the wrong impression from that line of thinking. And then lastly, I wanted to ask John McDermott the amount of money that you said that this amendment that's under discussion right now is I didn't hear much difference between that amount and the amount, and I come from the amount. Oh, well. But what is the difference? Maybe the staff can't make the amount that's in the amendment we're considering. Not in the amendment we just voted on. What if you isolate out just the amount of money that was proposed going to housing? What's the difference. If it was a couple of million to $2 million difference? So I wanted to ask Councilmember McDermott, how do you still get almost the same amount? Is it that 100 million that you're speaking now that's going to be bonded out later on? Is that how is that how you got that amount of money? Councilmember Gossett We allocate the 37.5% that is obligated to go to affordable to the affordable housing. And then we increase that by 12%, 12 and a half percent by decreasing the overall amount that was left. The tourism money and. Tourism money you put in housing, rather. Okay. And the difference between the Caldwell's amendment and the McDermott amendment or how the other half is spent. But both amendments. The Caldwell's amendment invests almost 50% in affordable housing. And the amendment I'm offering that we have before us at the moment is just over or equal to 50%. So it's essentially the same. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember up the group. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And speaking against the amendment, you know, it's kind of a cliche, but I'll talk about the good, the bad and the ugly. From my perspective, I think the good is a big investment in housing. You know, when this started, I felt like a lonely voice standing up by myself saying, you know, we have opportunities to invest here in housing and to see it come to fruition today in some way, shape or form is a good thing. And the supporters of this amendment get lots of the credit. I see the the Nickels Ville shirts and the share wheel shirts here. And you can thank the supporters, this amendment, you know, Councilman Lambert and others for being willing to stand up to the chambers and the small businesses to shift that tourism money out of that into the services. But that leads me to the bad, and that is there was some money in here in the executive's proposal. For direct tourism marketing. You know, about 60% of the tourism funds went to Safeco and the remainder would be available for other tourism purposes. And as I mentioned before, I probably the most tourism dependent business district and the ability to fund the housing. In case you're wondering what's going on, I think there's a lot of numbers thrown out, but this provides the funding for the housing. Instead of reducing the Mariners funding more, it goes in and it eliminates virtually eliminates the other tourism funding that I believe has more broad based economic benefit. And so to my folks from the Sea-Tac Center who are losing their businesses through the economic changes and redevelopment, I apologize. The dollars that could be available there will be lost. And to, you know, the the the service industry in South King County that probably one of the most diverse areas and Burian and SeaTac and the small businesses you support with this amendment the zeroes out the funding and I'm sorry I. So that's the bad for me the ugly is this continues to invest $130 million $135 million into Safeco Field. And it the fact that that remains a central priority, I think, is a troubling comment on the state of sort of politics in America, where those who already have enormous wealth are able to to access the levers of government in a way that uses government to generate even more wealth for themselves. I honestly believe the only thing that will change through the investment of $135 million for this purpose is that a small group of business owners will make 135 million more in profit. And that money's not available for other public purposes. Housing. Broad based tourism. Promotion. And and I don't think that's right. And I don't. And I wonder if I'm weird in thinking that in some way. But this is a private, for profit business that can and should pay their own expenses. And they've proven that they can do that and still generate enormous wealth and profits for themselves without needing an additional handout from the. So the idea originally always was that, you know, there was this taxpayer subsidy to build this stadium. It was built at the request of the Mariners Corporation for the Mariners. And the Mariners are the sole tenant. There's no doubt that this stadium exists for the purpose of benefiting this one business, a business we all love, but a for profit for profit business. And at the time, they needed a subsidy to build that stadium, supposedly because they weren't sure if they're going to be successful. Well, baseball has been wildly successful. They've made about $200 million in profit over the terms of the first lease. And the value of the business has grown by $1 billion and growing there. And now what's happening? The new lease eliminates profit sharing. It closes their books to public scrutiny and asks for another 100 and some million dollars in public handout. I don't think that's right. I think those public dollars should go to a public purpose. And and for that reason, I'm not going to be able to support this amendment. Other comments on Amendment one. Councilmember Gossett I wanted to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank Councilmember up ago for his clear thinking on this matter, and he has successfully broken it down in a manner that I can better appreciate and understand. So I'm compelled to still say, before we take this vote, that I don't see any socio economic, cultural, utilitarian value in giving an extremely wealthy empathy, $135 million, so that we, the public, can pay for some of their repairs and improvement instead of them who are very able to do so. I don't understand how the public in King County is served well by us doing that. That's all I wanted to say. You have Councilman Raquel Welch. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, too, am going to speak against this amendment. I will be voting no, unfortunately. I had hoped we would all come together, but it's clearly come down to the portion of the hotel motel tax revenue that would go to tourism promotion or not, including $135 million to the property for Safeco Field Maintenance and upkeep and I believe upgrades. I think it's important that we do prioritize and I'm really, really gratified that this amendment includes the same amount as mine did for affordable housing and for youth homelessness prevention services. That is a huge plus, but it's what's left from that that gives me enormous heartburn. And it's not enough for me to say, well, yes, we need to have more money and tourism promotion, so we'll deal with that before we take a vote by the full council. No, that should not be the case. We don't know if that will happen. We all have to prioritize in our professional and our work lives, but also in our individual lives. And with the two of those together, for me, I cannot fathom why we would give allocate $8 million for tourism promotion, which I believe is a need. It's a need for small businesses and South King County. It's a need for all over the county. And the more promotion there is for tourism, the more revenue we are going to have for essential services in our county. I see the $135 million going for a want, not a need. And it's really important to look at this from an historical perspective. When the legislature approved and the governor signed into law the funding mechanism to build a new stadium for the Mariners team and keep them here, the Mariners fortunes were not great. I mean, we'll all remember the the the thrill of the Mariners coming from behind. And it was just one of the most thrilling times, I'm sure most people in Seattle and King County and all over experience. But the Mariners were not doing well in terms of stadium attendance, the old king dome, all the troubles with that. And so when the legislature did go forward with the plan for funding a new stadium, the PFG, the Public Facilities District, was formed as a public private partnership with the Seattle Mariners, and there were two conditions that were part of that formation of this partnership. One was that when the Mariners eventually got into the black instead of in the red, they would share the profits with the public. So there would be a public good from that. The second condition was that the Mariners agreed to be responsible for maintaining the ballpark, the new ballpark, to what was called an applicable standard, and that would be measured against all peer ballparks in the country. And that the Mariners would. Be responsible with the CFD for making sure that the new stadium would be in line with the top third of all our ballparks. Now they've done that and the Mariners successful. We've heard a lot about the fortunes of ballparks around the country falling, the attendance decreasing. But that's not the case here. The Mariners team benefits from better attendance than it's happening across the country in other ballparks. And it's because it's such a fabulous stadium. I'm convinced that's part of it, and we need to make sure that continues. However, when the negotiations started with the BFD and the Mariners for the new 25 year lease, the Mariners declared in reality declared that profit sharing with the public was off the table. It would not exist any more. That's what they said. Yes. And in the end, the PFG agreed to that. But the other part of it was that the Mariners would assume the responsibility still to repair, maintain and upgrade the ballpark to make sure it would be in the top third of the pier stadiums. So that's the real catch for me. Now, I believe that it's an excellent ownership and management. We all want the Mariners to do well. We want the stadium to function and even be improved and there's room for improvement. In actuality, what they have requested, which did not come out during the speeches up here, was more than just maintenance. It's new clubs. Suites. It's new or expanded concessions. I love all that, and that will really go a long way for improving the fan enjoyment. But those aren't necessary parts of maintenance. So if you all want to have the public pay for those improvements, then vote for this striking amendment. But if you are concerned about what happens next, the Mariners will put the money back into the stadium. I'm convinced of that. But that can free up money for them to have a contract with the new infielder or do whatever they want, which again, will help the team. But should the public be paying for that? You know, and that's where I draw the line. And that the tourism promotion, Sun's stadium funding is reduced so dramatically that it's a joke. It's a pure joke. And I hope I know this will pass, unfortunately. I hope that we can come up with something that will bring back the revenue for tourism promotion. I don't know how we do it though, unless we lowered the amount for Safeco Field, which will be a new name and it will have new revenue coming in, but the public won't benefit from that or it it will come out of the housing. Where else does it come from? So I am sorry that I am having to oppose this amendment. I see friends of mine here who are probably very unhappy with me and probably colleagues here who are very unhappy with me. But this is the wrong thing to do. It doesn't add up. And I ask my colleagues to oppose it. Thank you. Before closing on it, I'd like to give my views on it as is there anyone else that wants to share their thoughts? No. Okay. This amendment would put $135 million into the stadium. Let's be really clear. The county executive's representative, and I think we all know this, has testified that there is no shortage of demand for additional resources needed for affordable housing. And let me assure you that this government and others, including cities, are going to come ask you voters, you taxpayers, to tax yourselves to build more affordable housing. I'll be in Shoreline tonight with my colleague, Councilman Baldacci, participating in the Regional Affordable Housing Task and Councilmember Caldwell's. And we're talking about tax hikes in that work to fund affordable housing. So every dollar, every one of those $135 million that this amendment puts into the stadium. Can go in to workforce housing under this law and every dollar we don't put in, we're going to ask workers either through a sales tax that Councilmember Goss and I sponsored last year, a regressive sales tax on working people or a property tax to fill that gap. And my rough estimates, I think that's about 60. If you took two years, 65 or so, million a year, that's $0.14 per thousand, $84 a year on an average home. The cost of this for a homeowner in King County for two years is 165 plus dollars. This is not a tax free set of funds we're dealing with because we're going to replace every dollar that we put in the stadium that we're not spending on affordable housing with an ask to the voters for a tax hike. Okay. Number two. So it just fails on on that in terms of the priorities. Number two, the balance here. I really echo my colleagues strong objections to the gutting the evisceration. Of what they're calling tourism promotion. But what that is, is feeding the goose that lays this golden egg. It means bringing people here to fill. The hotel. Rooms that generate this tax. And those of you in the tourism industry and the community that are nodding will remember the recession in 2008. When hotel vacancies could be. 50% or more. They were very high. When you have empty rooms, you have no revenue in the source. Okay. It goes straight down because you're not filling the rooms. These dollars, the 25% of the revenue stream that was reserved for tours and tourism promotion, paid dividends. When you invest them in marketing this region to generate this tax, to pay for cultural services, to pay for affordable housing. And this proposal guts it. And there will be a day, if this is passed, when this economy turns as Councilmember Von Bauer, who has set our guidepost, I think, for this discussion, rightly raising a lot of key issues where this revenue stream will drop and we will not have the resources to put, as the industry says, heads in beds. That's a grave error. That's a very poor judgment. I hear that, folks. I think even advancing this know there's work to do, but it's not right. In fact, this proposal puts 94% of the unspent tourism money into Safeco Field at 135 million out of 143, left 94% into one of our tourist generating facilities. Now, the Mariners own study shows that they perhaps generate $50 million over the course of this revenue stream. The 25 years in hotel motel tax, $50 million. I could understand an analysis that says much like the ticket tax or the parking tax. We'll return to you in the form of the stadium, what you generate. But this does two and a half times that. It's out of balance. It's risky. It is not long term thinking, and it is an effort, quite frankly. To provide some, in my view, cover by putting affordable housing money into a package and be able to have that talking point. Well, getting something that maybe doesn't have the coalition support for affordable housing. But make no mistake, the divide and conquer is very dangerous and actually hurts affordable housing when the economy turns. This amendment should be rejected and a better compromise should be reached. Too close, Councilman McDermott. Well, thank you. I trust none of the. And I don't take any of the comments made to question the motives, but the percentages and the finances that drive the amendment that's before us. This has been about affordable housing since the legislation was first transmitted to the council and the first press release. The amount for portable housing in this amendment and the previous one we considered are the same. And I pledge to work with my colleagues, council members Baldacci, Col, Wells, Dombrowski and others on addressing the tourism that does need work between here and full council if this is adopted. An Executive Constantine and as I said at the beginning of my opening remarks, this is a compromise, a balance. I don't expect there are champions for it to compromise with that. I would ask for your support. Thank you. Councilman McDermott. I have a technical question or a fact based question. And, Fred, you don't have to answer it, but you're here. Mr. Rivera, the general counsel mirrors. I first of all, appreciate you being here. And for the entire of the hearing at the prior meetings, I get my question is because there's some uncertainty on this in my mind. We have heard that that execution of the lease with the BFD by the Mariners is conditioned upon the t the investment of some amount of lodging tax. Can can you tell us today if this were to carry and it advance is $135 million, will that get it done? Does that get us to out to a lease? I mean, just fair question. If you can't answer it, I understand. I can answer it, but somewhat can't answer it because it's a term sheet that will require negotiation with a Ph.D., which will be the next step, and that will be a long form lease agreement. Funding is one element of it that long form form lease agreement will look like. But there are another number of other elements that we'll have to negotiate. All right. And this will be one one factor. So with this and just and I'll get you a second, though. So would would I'm trying to stand with the amount here be raised by the team as inadequate in terms of a lodging tax allocation. Ignore all the other issues. I understand you have to work through those. Or would this be adequate? Yeah, I don't I don't mean to be evasive, but because there are so many elements in the long form lease and this is one of them, I can't really answer that. It certainly is. It's a significant amount. And we recognize the hard work of the council and coming up with with this with this proposed compromise. But there are just too many elements to be able to answer that yes or no. Okay. I appreciate that. I think Councilmember McDermott. No, I'll. Okay. Councilmember Caldwell's, if you're willing. I'm here. I'm here. You are. We got you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I actually like Fred a lot, so I think everybody should remember this is not personality based for any of us with differences in views. Fred, you have indicated and others on the Mariners and the Mariners management and the PFA that the Mariners are not looking at leaving town if the negotiation, if the lease does not get signed. As you wish. That's correct. That's correct. But that you may rather I look to a five year lease agreement. Is that correct? That would be a conversation with 50. We have two parties involved and so we would have a desire for some sort of short term extension. But just as this term sheet to two parties to arrive at it would take two parties to agree on an extension. Thank you. And I appreciate that as well. And I would like to just say one more thing on that. The letter that we all received from the Public Facilities District Board dated July 15, but I think we received it early August, indicated that the BFD did not request any funds from the hotel motel tax, that that was sparked by the Mariners that was not originally in the terms sheet, but you put them on notice that you were going to request some amount, but 180 million was later. So the PFA has stated to us that it did not, it has not requested these funds be used, that they have no position whether we go ahead with this or not. Is that accurate? And I sent a subsequent letter on that that outlined the history of that. The term sheet does have a provision for use of the hotel motel tax and it says the PFA will accept whatever this council decides to do. And I think as I said in my letter, the PFA took the position that it was not going to get involved in the political decision. It had its responsibility. This Council has its responsibility and would accept whatever this council decided. Thank you. Fred. If you wouldn't mind, we have two more for you, at least Councilmember one right there, and then Councilmember Garcia. And thank you again for. For being here and helping us. Out to raise money for me in the process. Thank you very much. The comments by a customer called Wells raised an issue with me as the process we've been through. Here we are, four months to go and we're faced with this debate. The PFG finished their process on May 23rd. Yes. When did that process begin? It really dates back to 2014 when the necessary capital improvement study was initiated. And there's been reference to that study as a Mariner study actually started as a Ph.D. study and then became a joint study that identified the necessary capital improvement cost in 2014 . The actual negotiation of the terms that that led to the term sheet started sometime I believe in June or July of 2017 to was almost a one year process. Yeah. Mr. Chair. And members of the Council, I think, again, we are in a pivotal milestone of this negotiation. But I want to point out what has happened is we need to review the process by which these agreements are reached, not with ourselves, but also with our partner, the D the Public Facilities District. In my mind, drop the ball and they protracted this discussion. And we're faced now with less than four months to go to reach an agreement because you still have a lot of negotiation. You have to be based on what we do today. And I'm I'm very concerned about that. And I hope that we as a council review the process that we have been working through. Because I don't Council Councilmember Caldwell's predecessor talked about being jammed. He Lorie Phelps famous line was, you know, I hate being jammed. Well, we're being jammed and this process is being jammed because, in my opinion, close again. The party could have done a better job of working with you and then working with us. So I'm just setting out as a marker on the table that in the future that we work together to try to get the PFG to work a little better with us and with the Mariners, because I think the problem today is in large part due to that. Thank you. Okay. So, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Dunn has offered. A point of order. And respectfully, I, I just we're departing from council rules. And Robert's Rules of Order is because Mr. McDermott was the maker of the amendment and had closed. And we are getting back into debate. I would encourage my colleagues to take this up and final passage after this amendment is voted on. Councilmember Dunn, your point of order is well-taken. The mistake was mine. In asking for factual clarification, I certainly will give Councilmember McDermott an opportunity for additional closing remarks to remedy any mistake. If my colleagues wouldn't in mind indulging. We have one more question while we have from Mr. Gossett. Mr. Rivera here. Councilmember Gossett Let's keep it at a factual nature, not in the form of debate or. Argument, because the Plaza Councilman Don just said, I'll just make it, and not in the manner of a statement that we can I can follow up Mr. Rivera and others later, but it was generated from some remarks that Peter, I think that BFD has played a very responsible role and working as a diligent partner with the Mariners over all these many years. And in fact, Mr. Chair, for four of the seven members of the BFD, either through writing or meetings that I had with them or meetings that I attended with them clearly and consistently said, and they weren't all together. They said, we thought our negotiations on all the important points were over with until the Mariners indicated to us two points. We don't want to do profit sharing with y'all anymore. We want to keep all our profits. And secondly, we plan to go to the county council. They help us pay for our repairs and stadium improvements. And all four of them said that caught us by surprise. We didn't see where we could do anything when they just categorically said we're going to stop sharing our profit. And then we just were able to reinforce what you're going to continue to pay for our repairs and improvements. And then they said, well, we're going to ask the public, the county, to pay for our large share. I don't know what the percentage of hundred 80 million would have represented, but I didn't get the impression that they had been irresponsible. Are unclear about their desires on behalf of the public in general. And I look forward after the meeting today to contain to discuss that position. Thank you. Mr.. Thank you. And Mr.. Rivera once an opportunity to comment and then Councilmember Lambert, who has not had a chance today as a factual question. So just so we're clear. Clearly debate was not done on this. I called for the concluding remarks prematurely, and we're going to definitely make that available if desired. And and, Mr. Dunn, your your objection is well taken. Well, I'll be more mindful going forward. I will be quick. I'm happy to address, as you suggested, Councilmember Gossett, off the record or in a private meeting, the facts of that, that recitation of the negotiation processes is wrong. This was not a surprise, and I think I addressed that at the last hearing, and I won't repeat myself. I did want to clarify your first question. The reason I got up here on the monetary component of this agreement and I mentioned that there are a number of provisions in the lease that have to be negotiated. I do believe that the proposal that's now being considered from a financial perspective would allow us to get the deal done. I just wanted to I didn't want to overstate that because we do need to negotiate the long form lease. Thank you for it. And Councilmember Lambert. Thank you. I just really have a question, because I've been making lists of things I want to say and final passage. So. As I reviewed the tapes, the profit sharing over the last 18 years has been zero. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. So as I heard it, so help me if this is right or not, as I heard it, instead of that which is added up to zero, that there was a substitution in the negotiation to a revenue sharing. Could you explain what how how that will be calculated? Is that annually and about how much do you think that that will generate in the next couple of years? Yeah, you're correct, Councilwoman. The profit sharing provision through the negotiations was replaced by a revenue share, which is a guaranteed share. And what the Mariners revenue is on ticket sales, and that formula is one and a half percent of revenue, up to $100 million and 2% of revenue over $100 million with that number, $100 million escalating at CPI. And so rather than have the uncertainty of a profit sharing formula of the PFG and the Mariners agreed on the certainty of a revenue share, we estimate that over the 25 year period it's going to be somewhere between 60 and $80 million. There are a lot of variables, including the attendance and the the ticket price, as well as other events. This is not just the Mariners games, this is all ticketed events. We will share revenue under that formula. So we traded $0 over 19 years for a potentially 60 to 80 million is correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Lambert. All right, Councilor McDermott, my my error and permitting more debate after I recognize you to close on your amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Nothing further, nothing further. All right. Thank you for your accommodation there. Let's have the vote. This is on the bill due to the Mcdermitt Belushi Amendment 135 million to the PFG. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Council Member Bill Duchin and. 50% outstanding. Council Councilmember Dunn, I. Councilmember Garcia. Oh. Councilmember Coleman. Council member Lander Council member McTernan Council member of the group, no doubt number one ranked member higher. Mr. Chair. No. Mr. Chair, the vote is for five eyes for nose. That amendment carries. We will now turn to our remaining amendments here three through nine and. My announcements for Amendment three as chair. I can't make that, but I'd ask our vice chair as a courtesy to put it before us, and I'll speak to it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I movement. I move. Amendment number three. Amendment three is before us. I'd ask our central staff to give a brief overview of it from a factual perspective. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Amendment three would add a cap to the amount of revenues that would be transferred to the public facilities district. And it's a change to the funding agreement. There is the that the cap is is blank. Currently in the current amendment. So if you like to add a dollar amount to that, that would be helpful. Thank you. And I would entertain the attempt behind this is to cap it at the estimate of 135 million consistent with the amendment. Councilmember Caldwell's, would you make that verbal amendment to insert 135 million line four and line 11? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I moved the verbal amendment to amendment number three as specified. All right. Speaking to it as I understand it, and I would like staff and our colleagues to correct me if I'm wrong, but the structure of Amendment One that was adopted allocates a percentage of a revenue stream. There is no cap. So if the and we've already seen with the UFA forecasts that these numbers can change, including go up. We've heard from the Mariners Council that the $135 million, I don't want to misquote them but that numbers in the ballpark or what get it done. No pun intended, Fred. This amendment would cap it at $135 million. So in the event the revenue forecasts over time were in excess of that, we would not have an unlimited revenue stream here. I just this is somewhat of an ameliorating amendment from my perspective, but capital 135 million. Mr. Chair. Councilmember McDermott. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would remind my colleagues about the structure of the amendment that we've adopted, and it does have a cap of of from the forecast to the base amount of $135 million, and then does make a very different allocation for the funds that may come in above that forecast. And that is allocating 10% of anything above the August 20, 1844 forecast to the public facilities district. Not it not continuing the same investment. And I did not hear a definitive answer from Mr. Rivera that the base number was in fact, the Met met the the four corners of the term sheet since that number was actually 180 . I would ask members to vote no on this amendment and. Question Councilmember Dunn. And maybe best for staff. So I appreciate the description of the cut off at 135. And then above that, what happens if we get into a recession with which or at least a stagnant economy, which I think is likely to happen sometime in the relatively near future? Is there anything is there a floor to this that guarantees $135 million is and also how conservative are our forecast? I think the first part to the question first, there's no floor. So it's if we're in a it's just the straight percentage that was allocated in the underlying amendment. So if everything if over the next 25 years, revenues come in 10% lower and all the different allocations are lowered by 10%. And then the second part, how conservative? I guess that's what you want to compare it to. But the. I guess Pam wants to take it. Councilmember Dunn, for the record, Patrick Hamacher, counsel staff, the county's Office of Economic and Financial Analysis, according to our forecast council, uses what they call a 65% confidence level and doing their estimates, which is relatively conservative. And and by definition, what that means is it's 65% likely that more money will come in and is forecasted, whereas if you're trying to be aggressive in your forecasting, you would set that confidence level at 50%, meaning it's equally likely that it will come in higher or lower than what you've forecasted. So that doesn't help in a recession, but we do set the bar somewhat conservatively on purpose. That's what I wanted to hear was the 65% number, which we've used regularly throughout county planning processes, and occasionally that isn't conservative enough. For example, 2007, early 2008, before the bottom fell out of the market. And I just really worry about how we're setting this up with no no floor, but a ceiling on either option. My point. Thanks. Thank you, Councilmember and Councilman. We're up the Grove, then BELUSHI. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just another quick question is the I should know this, but does the legislation carve out that percentage revenue stream for Safeco just for the duration, a certain time duration, if they were to sign a shorter or longer term lease? Or does it continue on if they continue lease or is it for a defined period. In the underlying strike striking amendment? It amends the Gramm-Rudman in a minute, the term sheet, so that it defines it for the 23 year term. So this is only for the 23 years. It's not even if they extend the lease, pass the terms that they would have to come back to the council. Excellent, excellent. Questions on this one because. Oh, sorry, Councilman. I'll do Jackie. Mr. Chair. And I think Councilmember McDermott may have said this, but I just want I didn't hear it all. The issue of what happens if funds come in at a faster rate or higher rate than the oh four forecast that we're relying on is addressed in the amendment we just adopted. And it's in the summary as well. 10% to housing, 42.5% to tourism to start to make up that deficit, 37.5% to arts and culture, because that's required under the statute and 10% to the BFD. So there's sort of a sharing of a pro-rated sharing of excess funds and we just heard about what happens if it comes in lower than the forecast. I just wanted to make sure that was all. That's correct. Other. Thank you. Other comments or questions? Okay. To conclude, I think 135 million is more than enough, but it should be enough. This amendment would say it's enough. It would basically change the 10% allocation in the amendment that we have adopted here and convert that to zero. I encourage my colleagues to take yes for an answer on the Mariners at 135 million. Should get it done and vote yes. Marco Calderon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilor Duty. Councilmember Dunn. No. Councilmember Garcia. Hi. Councilmember Cole Mulholland Councilmember member. Councilmember McDermott. No. Council member of the group, Comrade Power. No, each. Correction. Yes, sorry about that. God. God, I thought I got you. I just went on. I went, oh, my gosh. Having voted incorrectly before the vote is over, I changed my vote. And I don't change my vote to. No, I say it correctly. Sorry about that. Enough. It's 1:00 where we've been working long time. Mr. Chair. I. Mr. Chair, the vote is four eyes, five nos. All right. That does not carry turn for council member about Dutchy. Mr. Chair, if I may, the amendment four has already been included as part of Amendment One, so we can of the present one. All right. Turning to Amendment five, council member, our Vice-Chair Would you put it before us? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move amendment number five. All right, that's before us, all our staff, to give a brief summary. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Amendment five would require the party to secure a non relocation agreement from the Mariners that will maintain the ballpark as the venue for a major league baseball team for the duration of the lease between the PFA and the Mariners. It makes those changes both to the funding agreement and to the proposed ordinance. Thank you very much. Again, Councilman Ron Bauer kind of set the guideposts at the beginning of the debate. And one of the big arguments in favor of this investment, or at least that was a very positive result of it, was that we have a 25 year commitment from the team to stay here, and we don't have these fights about losing teams. The fact of the matter is that that agreement, to the extent there is one, is between the Mariners and the public facilities district. As we understand it today, there is no lease agreement there. The changes continue to be negotiated and will be after this. What this amendment does is conditioned payment of the $135 million on the BFD and the team reaching a non relocation agreement in the form to be determined by them to ensure that the team stays here. So the commitments I think have been made, but this gives a little incentive if they want the money that we get, what we've been promised, a team that stays here for 25 years as a result of receiving these funds. Councilmember Oh, a lot of interest in this councilman right there. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The general counsel from the Mariners is here and he will be directly involved with the public facilities district and the negotiations. I would like to get his review of this amendment and how it would affect or not affect his ongoing discussions with the party. Very fair. I can be very quick. Thank you for the opportunity. We've already agreed to a standalone non relocation agreement and the term sheet and the expectation is that will be in the final lease. It's a separate agreement aside from the lease that commits the team to be here for the next 25 years. Councilmember Lambert Than Caldwell's, if I. Can say so again, as I heard it before and listening to all the debate that if you broke the 25 year lease that you would end up paying, I don't remember the number I think was 2% of the profits. And the revenue and. The revenue from that sale. So there is a expectation that you will be here the 25 years or there is already a penalty put into the agreement? Yes. In the last ten years, if if it's a sale to a. Lot of stakeholders. That do not agree to keep the team here for an additional ten years beyond the existing lease, there's a significant financial penalty. I believe it's actually 10%. Of 10%. Of the sale. Okay. So what if they do what do you decide to do that in year 12 is we would still get the 10% from the sale? No, the and in the earlier years of the lease, there's a requirement, A, to find a local buyer. And B, I don't have the term sheet in front of me, but I believe there's a commitment and Mr. Money may be able to help me if he has the term sheet in front of him. There's a commitment that we try to find a local buyer and that if there's a sale to a local buyer that commits to ten years, there is no payment. So an additional ten years, which would make it a 35 year lease. And if that commitment is not made again, only in the first, it's ten or 15 years of the lease, there's a $20 million payment that would go to the PFG to be used at the ballpark. And Mr. one can correct me if I have some of that incorrect. That is what I remember reading. So and and the idea was to really make sure the team is is incentivized to keep it here in Seattle, not only for 25 years, but for beyond. So since you've already agreed to that, do you have a problem with this being put into the language? I do not. Thank you. Does that answer your question, Councilman Carlos? Okay. Councilmember Baldacci. I don't know if it's just a staffer to the maker of the motion, but the term sheet between the PFG and the team states that they have to enter into. They've agreed to enter into a relocation agreement or a non relocation agreement, whatever you want to call it. What does this amendment add to that? What's the difference between those two things? I guess what I would say is this amendment brings the county to the table. We're not to the table in agreement and conditions. The receipt of the lodging tax upon them entering into that agreement that they've committed to but haven't done yet. Got it. Thank you. Okay, Clark, I'll call the roll on Amendment five. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Matthew Chance. Councilmember Dan NORTHAM. Member Dawson. Councilmember Coleman nine. Councilmember Lambert five. German Air Force member after her fight over her long drive. Hi, Mr. Chair. Did you notice? Nine eyes, no nose. Okay. Amendment five carries. That's the Garrett Holbrook baseball fan amendment and Amendment six in both. Mr. Chair, I move amendment number six having to do with special election. Thank you. This is my amendment. I'll be brief. I would not have offered this amendment at the coal wells. $25 million number. But given that the proposal is to invest $135 million in public tax dollars into the stadium, I think we should be consistent with our history of stadium funding in this county for 50 years, starting in 1968, February that year, voters were asked whether they wanted to pay for a stadium. They said yes. Councilman Ron Wright Bauer At 64%, the current Safeco Field was put to a vote. Put to a vote. The voters said no, got it anyway. And our say ah, Seahawk Stadium was voted on statewide at the insistence of Paul Allen. So we have got a long history of asking the voters whether this is a priority for them. I think when you have five, four votes of this Council on a divided issue with a history of voting on stadium financing issues, that we should ask the voters whether they agree. Our county charter provides for this. It provides for an advisory ballot to be asked for by the council, and that's what this amendment would do. It would condition the release of these funds upon the receipt of an advisory ballot result in the next election that we could schedule it for. And that would be a February. We are not able to referendum this, but under our charter we can't ask for an advisory vote. And that's why that's that way. You know, we ask voters and we have to ask them whether we should fund services for poor kids or whether we should invest in education, whether we should fund our EMS system, our medical system, every basic government, public need, it seems the voters weigh in on. I don't think that professional sports should get a carve out exception when they're getting $135 million. I think it's fair to treat them the same as basic public services and ask the voters for their view. And the voters may render their view whether we ask them to or not. They can because they can file for a referendum by petition, and that may happen. So I'd ask my colleagues to ask the voters what they think and vote yes on this. Councilmember McDermott. And then up the. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're now in our fourth hour of our third meeting in the committee to hold on this topic. I pledged a lot of open process. And and that open process is an important part of our democratic work and our work in a legislative body. That and that's exactly what we've been doing all morning into the afternoon in an hour or two at our two previous meetings. I think that's our job as elected officials, as legislators, is to do that work. Become familiar with the facility study that was begun over two years ago, the financing plan, the forecasts. That's the work we have done. And I think it's our job to make a decision and go forward and to have a conversation about the will of the voters. I temper that with with the fact that I know that the voters of this state and the voters of my legislative district voted against adding employment nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation to our state statutes. And that's why a a. Easy point to the will of the voters is not one I'm willing to make. I believe it's our job as legislators to study the issues and make these decisions. Governor, rough to grow. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am usually hesitant to just pass things along when we can take care of them here. But I'm going to support this primarily because I believe voters would reject $135 million for Safeco Field this summer. I went out, I did a big outreach effort in my district where I went to all the farmers markets and summer festivals at a booth to listen to people and talk to people. Because I was vocal on this issue, a lot of people talking to me, friends and family, and over the course of the last four months , I've had two constituents who expressed some interest in seeing some funding going to Safeco, and I was flooded with strangers and friends. And family pulling me aside, saying thank you for standing up for a more responsible use for public dollars. So I have great confidence that we're embarking on something that is not supported by our constituents in terms of 135 million going to Safeco to benefit the Mariners. I also worry about public trust. As was mentioned previously, the public voted on funding for Safeco Field and voted it down and the legislature came up with a different financing proposal and put it forward. And that caused some political backlash that we still see ripples of today. A lot of political scientists have pointed to that period in time as when the Tim Inman rose. It was literally the year after that where this anti-government populism surged and has remained to some degree in this state because of a eroded trust in the democratic institutions. And I worry about that here and about how our institution and how we as elected officials look. Embarking upon something that I think is so out of step with the voters in terms of a use of public dollars. So I think we ought to give them the opportunity to weigh in on this question. And I will support your amendment. Thank you. Councilmember Roderick. Better than Caldwell's. Thank you. Sure. I appreciate your willingness to send this ballot measure out to the public, but I think you recognize the problems that would create. For anybody considering naming Safeco Field pending a decision in February. They're trying to get a contract signed to get a naming rights for the stadium. And who would want to do that, given the potential of this being stretched out, either in a political career or a political campaign or legal action that would follow that. Number two, we are hired to do a job. Our job is to make decisions, to take the due diligence process that we've had here today. And I want to thank you very much for the fair and equitable way you've dealt with it. I think everybody should recognize that this has been a long process. I will share with the members of the audience that at about 4 hours ago I asked them if I can get out of here by 1130. I should have said, Am I right? Because maybe by PM we'll get out of here. But I want to thank Councilmember Dombrowski, who. Headed toward the finish line here. Who have I've been on the opposite side on this 5 to 4 vote, but I appreciate and respect his balanced approach to letting everybody be heard. We are elected to vote. We've done our due diligence. We cannot hold up this process anymore. I think in large part, a third entity has created some of the problems that we're dealing with as a body today with the Mariners. I hope, again, as I said earlier, that we review the entire process by which contracts are renewed using third parties as in the case of the public facilities district. But we need to proceed. We need to do our due diligence. And we need, quite frankly, Mr. Chair, to do our job. Our job is to vote. Thank you, Councilman Rick Bower, for those remarks and kind words. Councilmember Kowalski. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm normally not somebody who thinks we should send things out to the voters, that we should do our job for which we were elected. However, as Councilmember DEMBOSKY so ably brought out, we do place measures on the ballot for other funding issues. I'm not talking about some policy issues, but funding issues where the public's money is involved. And there's been a lot that's been brought out in recent weeks about the actual funding mechanisms with maintenance and upkeep, and that's possible upgrades to the stadium that many of us believe and certainly most all of my constituents have contacted me believe that it's not appropriate to use public funds for. In fact, the Mariners did agree to funding maintenance and upgrades and upkeep, and now they want the public to throw in $135 million. I think that's going to be very difficult to explain to the public, and I am going to go ahead and support this proposed amendment, because I think that's a very, very complicated, very different than the usual measure that we vote on here. Thank you, Councilmember Coe Wells. Anything else from other members to conclude? I agree with my colleagues that we're sent here to do a job and a vote. I believe firmly in our representative form of government and that we face the voters on a regular cycle and are accountable for our decisions. But the framers of our charter and this is its 50th anniversary, provided for the opportunity for us to ask the voters opinion what the advisory ballot measures. I think that that should be the exception and not the rule. But this is an exceptional piece of legislation that divided this government and divided the community. It is consistent with the stadium financing deals in for 50 years in this community to ask the voters what they think. And I think it's reasonable to get their views on this. And I, for one, would listen to them. Last market to call the roll. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Balducci, Councilmember Dunn? No. Councilmember Nelson, I. Councilmember Polanco Councilmember Member No. Councilmember McDermott No. Council Member of the Draft. I don't remember if I'm right there. No. Mr. Right. Mr. Chair, the vote is for EIS five nos. All right, that fails. Four out of five. We have three more amendments. We're making good progress here. Amendment seven. Councilmember Cole. Wells, would you take me out? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know the Amendment seven. Thank you. I'd ask Andrew or Jeff to give a brief summary. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Amendment seven would allow the county to seize the transfer of lightning tax proceeds if there is a change in controlling interest or ownership of the Seattle Mariners within any three year period or the Seattle Mariners is sold. And if there is a change in ownership that the it would require the party to reimburse the county of the transferred funds in the event that the Seattle Mariners sold for profit that realizes gains in value above 3% per year. Thank you. Much of the motivation behind this amendment, which would require a repayment of the taxpayer's investment upon above a certain profit level upon sell. The team is that we've heard so much about a partnership, a partnership between the Mariners and the public. I believe that partner should, if they're sharing in the obligations, share in the gains. What this says is if there's a sale and the ownership makes a profit greater than 3% cumulatively per year, that they would repay the money that the public as the partners in this deal have invested. That's the motivation behind it. Encourage Members Support Councilmember Ron Recto. Thank you, Chair. I like the opportunity for the general counsel to increase his billable hours. And I'd like to ask Mr. Rivera if he would review this proposal and make comment on it. Thank you. This is inconsistent with the terms used in the negotiation with the PFO. There were a number of tradeoffs, and one of the more significant trade offs was the restriction on the sale of the team and other restrictions that would require any new owner to extend the term of the lease or extend the commitment to the Seattle area. This is not consistent with that. We would have to go back and negotiate a number of different terms that I think in the long run would not be beneficial to the public because in exchange for this, we would ask the lifting of any restrictions on the sale to local owners or any other commitment to the city, saying it was a fair trade that was made in the negotiations that went on for four, ten months. Additionally, the Mariners under this new proposal, would be committing around 83% of all expenses towards this public ballpark for maintenance, for upkeep, for operation and maintenance. And so as to the partnership between the public owner and the Mariners that is identified in the term sheet with that cost sharing mechanism. Thank you. Governor Rick Perry. Thank you, Mr. Rivera. Councilmember up the Grove. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a question it's only partially tongue in cheek, given we're allowing the Mariners to come and comment on each of our amendments, may I invite stakeholders up to tell us what they think about this? Someone from one of the housing organizations about the idea of us getting a return on investment. I concerned about the process of letting one interest now weigh in each time because what they get invited up. I appreciate the sentiment behind the suggestion in closing of The Grove. I do think that given the unique nature, when we are a third party almost observer to a contracting arrangement between the PFG and the Mariners, that with respect to these deal changing amendments or they could alter the deal, it's reasonable to hear from the mayors. I would also hear from the part of their councils here if they wanted to comment. But I understand. I understand you're saying, but I'm treating it a little bit differently. But your point is understood. Let's go to the vote on Amendment seven. This is the share on gain of sale. I see. Mr. up there of that, you did have some eager and willing participants. In the audience. All right. Go ahead, market. Councilmember Dutchie. Councilmember Dunn. No. Councilmember Garza. Councilmember Coleman. Councilmember Lander. Councilmember McDermott, councilmember off the ground. Councilmember one right there. No. Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the vote is 369326. Okay. Turning to we have two left and then a title amendment, amendment eight. Mr. Chair, Amendment eight would allow the county to seize transfer of the proceeds. Oh, I'm sorry. I think. Yeah, well, has Congressman have to have the amendment moved and then hear an explanation? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move amendment number eight. All right. Council member Cole Wells, our vice chair, has moved Amendment eight. I apologize, Mr. Chair. Amendment eight would allow the county to seize transfer of the lodging tax proceeds if the naming rights sold by the Mariners equal or exceeds the total amount of those receipts. If this is the naming rights sold, this less than the total amount and the difference of the proceeds and the amount of the naming rights should be should be returned to the county. Thank you, Andrew. Just speaking in favor of this amendment. One of the most troubling aspects of the tentative deal that has been negotiated between the public facilities district for the publicly owned stadium and the Mariners, is the assignment of all revenue to be derived from the sale of the naming rights? We understand that the field will no longer be called Safeco Field and that it will be renamed and that there will be a payment in this case. Under the terms of this deal to the Mariners, for the benefit of naming the public stadium. You know, I think there was a time when this wasn't a significant amount of money. But we heard in the numbers we're talking about, we heard from the negotiator for the BFD that this could be upwards of $100 million. And in fact, when you look around the country, I look at State Farm Stadium would be the new name for the Phenix Ball team. They're on an 18 year agreement and I think the number there has them paying between eight and 9 million a year. That could be a quarter billion dollars applied here. This is on a renamed stadium down in Atlanta. There's a new 20 year deal for the Atlanta Hawks and that is expected to generate about $200 million. The Seattle P-I reported here with respect to the Mariners in 2017 that the naming deal here and this was before these other two deals were done could be between 5 million or perhaps up to $10 million per season again on 25 year deal. That could be a quarter billion dollars. None of these revenues are accounted for in the Mariners financial showing about what they're contributing. This is all profit that goes straight to the team. It seems to me that for these kind of dollars that we ought to have a dollar for dollar credit back to the public against this lodging tax investment. That's what this amendment does. It says if you're going to sell the naming rights and receive tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, that we ought to credit back the lodging tax contribution by an equivalent amount. QUESTION Councilmember Lambert with a question. Thank you. So just a clarification. When you were saying Mariner, did you mean BFD? No. The naming rights go to the ball club. Mariner So this which I'm sorry, the value of the naming rights, the receipts, the revenue from them. So the amendment then instead of going to the Mariners, the money would go to the parties. Is that what this. Is up. To the 135 million? If they if they sold it for 200 million, they would keep 65 million. If I got that right, Andrew, at 135 million loss. Correct. All right. So this is interesting, too, because, you know, there were conversations in Olympia about the revenue sharing. And as I remember and again, it's been over two decades, but I, I thought that the profit sharing was going to be done on an interim basis based on gross, not on net. And so when this came up again here in a different venue and I was reading that, I was like, Oh, that's interesting. So, you know, if you're going to sell something and there's this information out there, you know, if the rule is that if you pay more than $5, then you have to do something different, then it's a pretty good chance that the price will be for 99. So I'm a little bit concerned about how this would all work. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Lambert, Councilmember Cole Wells. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to support this amendment. And I think it's there's a bit of irony here. The Mariners have asked us for now 135 million. Their request was for 180 million or so. And I never heard mention of the naming rights from the Mariners. Whatever the amount would be could very well equal or cover what amount they're wanting the taxpayers to pay for, really upgrades to the stadium where they could be doing that themselves with what they will be receiving from naming rights. We don't know the absolute amount that will come in, but it will be very sizable. So I still believe that the either the public should have the means to be compensated or share with that. On a dollar by dollar basis. But certainly this points out. To another reason why the the striking amendment that will be adopted is not a good deal for the taxpayers. And I urge your support for this amendment. It does provide some protection to our taxpayers, to our constituents, to. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Councilmember McDermott. Then up the road. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Indeed, you're right, Mr. Chair. At our last meeting, we had a presentation from the PFG officials and they spoke about the naming rates, and they told us that this was part of the overall term sheet and something that was part of their calculations in coming in considering the term sheet for the lease that they that is now the executed document between the ball club and the PFO and my reference before us. And so it's not as if the PFO did not consider this. It is considered and was part of that balance. So I think that this amendment upsets that balance. I would ask members to vote no. Councilmember of the room. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Speaking in favor of the amendment, in part because for me, it highlights the unusual nature of this whole relationship between a public facilities district and the Mariners Corporation. The in my mind, I know technically the FDA is a public entity, but in reality it functions largely as one and the same in the sense that the creation of that public facilities district was the only way legally to drive state tax dollars into the creation of a stadium for the team. You can't just give it's against our state constitution to just gift public funds to a private business. So what do we do? We create this government, a public facilities district. Then we give them the money, all of the tax revenues generated there, concessions, parking, all go back into it to benefit that business. They don't pay property taxes. Local governments are foregoing five or 6 million bucks a year in property taxes. So that benefit goes in to that business again, which I say is the sole tenant. When you go to a concert or a car show or something at Safeco, they're not contracting with the PFA either contracting with the Mariners Corporation. They get the benefits. In this case, if the stadium sells the name of it, the Mariners Corporation will get the benefits. Given all of that. If they're going to be successful in going out the way we heard testimony from the chair that other stadiums around the country have been successful in securing large amounts of funding for the naming rights. I think it makes sense that if we're going to argue that this is a publicly owned stadium, then the public ought to get some money back for the public naming rights and that the you know, the term sheets can be revisited. In my thought, I understand they wanted that, but so I think it's a great idea. I'm with you. All right. Thank you, Councilmember Guzman. Well, Dewji. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for letting us bleed a little bit in the committee time. I was going to say two things in first, as we're about 6 minutes into the Mobility Committee meeting at this point and. We're all going to get. Mobile. No, we've we I met with staff on the side and we've made it we've made some ideas about how we might still cover as much of that agenda as possible. But on this point as we're getting there, I think we have a sincere a difference of opinion on this dais. I think it's fair to say, about what is an appropriate amount of investment of this hotel, motel tax tourism bucket in the publicly owned stadium. And there's lots of reasons and they've all been detailed, I think, very clearly and fairly and honestly. And I think that this amendment is just another way of stating the disagreement we've already had, which is how much money ought to go into the stadium. I feel as a co-sponsor of the amount of the amendment that was adopted, that the balance is reasonable and this would change that balance substantially. And so I'm going to vote no on the amendment. But I just wanted to acknowledge before we get to title amendments and final passage, that this is real debate, this is real sausage making. We're doing it here in front of people. I think that's what people want to see us doing is our job. And I appreciate all my colleagues for what they've brought to the table today, even though we clearly have some different views on a number of things. But I'll be voting no. Thank you, Councilmember. I'll do other comments on this one. All right. I'll just wrap up. There's 795 almost $800 million of identified improvements, operations and maintenance. Quarter million. A quarter billion of that turn. 50 million as operations and maintenance. And the club pays for that. So if you take out the operations and maintenance and that's any tenant takes care of their own operations and their basic maintenance, we're talking about a CapEx contribution, a revenue share of $165 million. The fact of the matter is selling the naming rights to the stadium could cover 100% of the Mariners CapEx contribution and revenue share. Given the numbers we're hearing about. I don't think that this is a balanced deal. When you do not cap and do not participate at all and give 100% of the upside of the naming rights to the tenant. And I guess to add insult to injury, the public may like may never know because there isn't any how much they get for these. There is no requirement and no transparency in the books that we would ever know what was paid for the naming rights unless perhaps the the private entity had to report it to the FCC as a major cost or something like that. So that that's troubling to me. This amendment would cure that. Courage. Support Barca. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Bell. DG Councilmember Dunn. Councilmember Garcia. Councilmember Colwell. Councilmember Lambert. Councilmember McDermott. No, Councilmember also. Councilmember one right there? No. Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the vote is for eyes blackness. Okay. That amendment doesn't carry now our penultimate amendment. Amendment? No. And, Mr. McDermott, would you take co-sponsors on this one? I'd be happy to. All right. I would like to add my name in. And I hate to get you get everyone too excited, but I think we have one amendment after this all the time. That hotly debated title of. This is why. This is the penultimate. This is the penultimate amendment. I need to look at penultimate. Mr. Sherry, move adoption of amendment. Nora and and members are asking me if we have a copy of Amendment nine. Oh, it's at the very bottom of it. It is two pages. It is. That are stapled together. It was loose behind your your matrix packet. You can look at my customer, MCDERMOTT And I'll share and I'll share mine with you. Okay, that's me for us. Would you like staff to give a basic overview, please? All right. Jeff for Andrew. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Amendment nine would add labor neutrality language to the underlying funding agreement. It would make the county's obligation to transfer fund mining tax revenues contingent on the club or the district in the club. Entering an agreement where the club would agree to remain neutral in response to any employee organizing campaign. And then if there are a number of employees indicate they wish to be represented, the club would agree to recognize the union for purposes of collective bargaining, and the club would provide reasonable and unlimited access to the ballpark and club president premises. Councilmember McDermott to speak in favor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you for joining me as a sponsor of the amendment. This amendment adds labor neutrality to the ALA. The agreement is very popular here, up and down. And I appreciate that. So I ask for my colleagues support. All right. Thank you. Other comments? Oh, Councilmember Lemon has a question that comes from. I have a question. I thought that the lady that was from the labor councilor earlier said that the relationship between the Mariners and the employees is very well organized. Isn't that what she said in testimony? I hear her correctly. I wasn't either. You want. Our staff to repeat testimony. From. They said that. The audience after 84. Naps. Is that what she said? Councilmember Lambert, you're going have to go in your own memory unless another. Member of my member said she said things were good. So I have some concerns about mine. Six Where the county's obligation, after we went through all of this to make the transfers is contingent on anything. I think that every single person in this audience, including all of us, could say it's only contingent if you give me my and yours is yours. So I feel uncomfortable with that line being in here. Thank you. Councilmember Gossett. Yeah, but I'm trying to figure out. Cathy said line just on line and I. The obligation to make such transfers of lodging tax receipts is contingent upon the district and the club executing an agreement before or at the same time that the lease is executed that substantially complied with the following provisions. So I don't know if CAP is taken in these provisions. Can the maker of the motion, Mr. Mike, Darren, or our staff, explain each of these items underneath? Councilmember Gossett If you continue on I'm line nine where yeah. That you referenced, it requires that there be an agreement that the club agrees to remain remain neutral in response to any employee organizing campaign. The club agrees to not take any action or make any statement showing preference for or opposition to employee organizing. Those are those are values that I hold strongly. And I ask colleagues to support labor neutrality in the ability of workers to organize for the common collective. Good to join me in supporting this amendment. My concern with this amendment is that three or four people who testified today said that they were only down here because the Mariners had already okay and given their market rate salaries. And then they were kind of hostile toward the folks representing the homeless and transit union organizers and yeah. And low income housing developers because many housing developers use nonunion labor or they're not able to pay fair market value because they're trying to build housing for the poor. And that kind of concerned me. I'm trying to figure out why would they say that at the main, Mariners had not already told them, we're going to be on your side. And this calls for neutrality. Councilmember Gossett I'm not sure I understand the question. I as I heard the question, that was about some of the concern that was expressed around the housing construction industry. And this doesn't address that. This addresses labor neutrality between the Mariners and employees of their organization. And not with the employees for some reason came here and said they support what the Mariners are requesting because the Mariners are paying us good wages. And to me they were saying we want to separate fees from those working for their poor trying to create housing for the poor. That's my interpretation of what these advocates of labor were saying on this morning, which kind of surprised me. Governor Garcia, thank you for the inquiry speaking for myself, but perhaps in response to your open inquiry, my sense of this amendment is that it would strongly encourage the apparent blossoming of more friendly labor management relationships between the workers and the Mariners and conditioned the receipt of these tax dollars upon specific agreements, including with respect to labor organizing, including neutrality clause and things like that that you often see in those works. So it puts a little more teeth into perhaps an existing increasingly positive relationship. All right, Mr. Cosmonaut. Okay, that's just my. That's one member's down. Yeah. Thank you. Anything else on this one? Clerical collar role. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Bell, DC Councilmember Dunn. Councilmember Gossett No. Councilmember Colwell Councilmember Lumber not. Councilmember McDermott High Council Member of the Grove Councilmember Phone right there. Mr. Chair. Hi, Mr. Chair. The vote is six A's, two notes. Okay. There's a different vote count six two. That one carries. Councilmember Cole Wells, would you be willing to put the technical title amendment before us that conforms to title of the ordinance to the revisions that have been adopted today? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Some of all in favor of the title amendment. T one say i i any opposed the council? No, you may not. All right. Turning to the underlying ordinance as amended, and I'm showing that the striking amendment. Well, we're not on this one. Right. S one as amended. And that would be amended by amendment numbers one and amended and five and nine that comport with everyone's understand, including the clerk's. All right. And the title amendment. I'm going to ask for a roll call vote on the strike amendment as amended. And then we will turn to a roll call vote on final passage after members have had any concluding remarks that they want to make. So let's do the striking amendment, S-1 as amended. Roll Call. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Balducci, Councilmember Dunn, Councilmember Gossett. I don't know. No. I may not have been very clear there. Go ahead, Mark. He's a no. As I understand it. Councilmember Well, Councilmember Lambert. Councilmember McDermott, councilmember at the Grove, Councilmember Yvonne right there. All right, Mr. Chair. No, Mr. Chair, the vote has five eyes or nose. All right. The striking amendment as amended is five eyes, four nose. Let's give members an opportunity, if they would like it, for a brief concluding remarks prior to final passage. And remember, you have an opportunity at full council in two Mondays and the comparable duty as a committee meeting. Okay. So you have to deal with Governor Belden glare. The longer you go on. Let's start with the calls from Oregon. Would you like to lead off as the prime sponsor? Technical. All right. My extraditing this measure for next Monday. No. And the reason. For pursuing the ordinary course, given the fact that there is additional work that I think staff has acknowledged needs to happen with fine tuning, both from a technical perspective and the county executive's suggestion and colleagues suggestion that additional work with respect to tourism promotion needs to be done. I don't think it's reasonable between now and Monday, three business days to complete that work. If the chairman can be overridden. But my ruling will be that we will proceed in the ordinary course and it'll be on the council's agenda at the Monday after next. I appreciate it. I can't remember our duty appearance. You want to say something? I want to join the chair in saying I don't think we should expedite this. I think that a lot of these amendments came together a lot. When you say mine came together very late and I think that there might be work that needs to be done to perfect them and there may be things that need to happen in between now and then. I think ten days is normal course, if I'm counting correctly, and I don't I don't know of any reasons why ten days would be a fatal thing to do and it would make it less crazy, she said in articulately thinking. No reason to throw a fastball here, Pete. Just to take a little edge off. And it's nice to to wrap up, Mr. Chair. Sure. I've often said if we didn't have sports, what would be chair? You know, if we look at today's front page news, most of us reject it and go right, right to the sports pages . The reason is sports helps bring people together. It gives us protagonist, antagonist. It gives us an opportunity to cheer for things. And in today's crazy world that we have, our sports teams have been factors in bringing a diversified community together. I'm really proud of the fact that the Seattle region is as diversified as it is. But you go to any game and you see every layer of population, people who've been here one generation or five generations. They're all united because sports brings people together. This package, I think, will bring this council together in the long run. I think it's a good partnership and I hope we move forward. I know we're going to final passage a week from Monday. And I want to thank again publicly the chair of this committee, because this has been a very tough task. He originally wanted this to be delayed out until later in September, but he was kind enough to hold a special meeting in August for the public to be heard from. And I think we've benefited from the public process and I look forward to working with the chair on any questions that come up between now and next Monday . Councilman wrote the group. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not sure what made me think of this, but someone once described politics as a sports for people who are on athletic, sort. Or. Or not patronage. I mean, movie stars for ugly people. One or the other. But I am. I don't doubt the benefit of sports to our region, both for a quality of life. It's like other businesses. It's an economic driver. Mariners have been an important part of my life. Growing up, my family had season tickets 22 years. My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at a suite at Safeco Field. That's not in doubt. The Mariners have made it clear they're here to stay. It's a wildly successful private business. It's not going anywhere. And whether or not we choose to invest public funds to subsidize the upkeep of that facility or not, that will continue. At the end of the day, though, I have some fundamental concerns. Number one, King County does not own Safeco Fields. King County does not own Safeco Field. It's owned by a public facilities district. And as I said before, it was funded by the taxpayers at the request of this business, for this business. And this business is the sole tenant. It's a large, private, for profit business that can and should pay for their own expenses, and they can do so while still generating continuing to generate tremendous wealth for those owners. I don't think it's an appropriate use of public funds to subsidize those operations, and that's what I believe we're doing here today to the tune of $135 million. I also am not comfortable with the approach used to reach the level of funding in housing. We essentially eliminate all of the remaining tourism promotion dollars. So not only do the small businesses or businesses of small and large all over the county not get a handout like the Mariners are, but we're pulling the rug out from under them in terms of the marketing and promotion that could help stimulate those economies and those businesses around the county. And I think that's the wrong approach in the end. So I think, you know, at some point somewhere around the country, some communities are going to need to stand up to professional sports and say, enough is enough . Your businesses, you can operate on your own and you don't need these kinds of handouts. I think we can continue to have the benefits of this business and the wonderful product they produce the entertainment, without having to provide taxpayer subsidies. And I think that is a way that would be a more responsible use of public funds than what we are being. But what we're putting forward today for support. So I hope there's room to make substantial changes between now and full council. I'll certainly engage in good faith with my colleagues, but today I am strongly against this proposal. Councilmember Gossett. I thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to make a comment to Councilman up to go first when he made the analogy between the general public and politicians. I just wanted him to know, because I'm not the dragon type, that Larry Gossett is a member of the South Public Schools Athletic Hall of Fame. I'm a two sport Letterman athlete myself. Okay, good. Oh, but. Coming across that, I have shot a little ball. With you and quickly realized that I was a little better at politics. As bad as I am at this than basketball. You are a very good politician. But, Catherine, I have to go. Is it that I'm thinking about what happened with and for our culture? We it was independent of us for 19 years. And then we put it back under the county operation. That would have been legal for us to eliminate the PFA, the Public Development Authority that runs the stadium and put it back under oath. Or is that not legal? Just. Yes, that's really a question for me, Mr. Chair. I would say. I saw a local columnist recently in The Seattle Times suggested we sell it. I think that's a fabulous idea anyway. But I believe it would probably require some state action, not just county action. Okay. Are there comments or questions? Councilmember Lambert. Thank you. I do think that there appear to be members appointed by the state, aren't they? No, we do that. And the county. All right. So I wanted to talk about the idea that I wish that this had been a blank sheet, that rather than the state telling us, you know, what percentages needed to be, where on some of the parts that if you'd had a blank sheet, things might have been very different. And we see this in a lot of things coming from Olympia. You have to do this much in this and this, much in this. And it isn't exactly the way we would like it. So that is a growing concern. I know that the Mariners play 81 games approximately in the stadium, but I also know that they have other major events and and also about 100 smaller events. So it is a place not only for people who like baseball, but people who are doing other kinds of events. And there's more and more people come to Seattle and helping plan an event that's going to be at Safeco Field. And there are a lot of places you can invite thousands and thousands of people to show up. So it is an asset, whether we want to own it or not, want to own it. And the discussion later about eventually do we want to sell it, you know, is another discussion. So that's one bucket. The tourism bucket, I feel definitely needs some work. Somebody called it earlier, the golden goose. And I think it's really important that people need to know what is here. And but I think that the way that we deal with our housing is not adequate. Not adequate at all. You know, Councilmember Belushi and three others on the council are doing an affordable housing task force. I'm not on the committee, although I've asked to be numerous times and I have attended almost all the meetings but one. And I see what's going on and I think I'm probably the only person on this council that has ever been homeless. So I get this, but we aren't going to be able to build our way out of it by just throwing money at it. What we've done wrong, in my opinion, is that we are not building the housing starts. They've said that they need 144,000 houses and in order to build that many houses, that means you have to build 480 houses the month that my math is correct. And we had labor in here earlier who are saying we have people who want to work and we need to have housing starts. The gym, which we as the Growth Management Act, which we were briefed on yesterday, talked about the 14 characteristics of a state law. You're supposed to have adequate transportation. You're supposed to have housing starts and all qualifications and categories. And we haven't. And we have allowed that to continue until we step up as a community and say we're going to make really hard decisions. We are going to find where we can build 480 housing places a month. We're going to have problems. We've already been told 100 people a day are coming to this county. And if you figure that two per. That is really an important number that we need to be looking at. I want my children to live in my community. That's important to me. I want my 18 grandchildren to live near me. I'm expecting one of them to take care of me someday when I'm 104 and I want them to be near me. I plan to be partying until then, but I want them to take care of me that I don't know how any of my children or grandchildren are going to afford a median house that currently is around $700,000. You get out of college and I have or right now grandchildren are just out of college and they may not be moving in with me soon because it's very difficult for somebody straight out of college to be spending $2,000 a month in rent. So I think until we start looking at the supply and demand and making the decisions of where these houses are going to be and making sure that it doesn't take three years to get a housing permit to be building, we are going to be in the same mess. So this is one part of the coin, but we need to know the other part of the equation and make sure we address that and soon. Thank you. Thank you. Other members Council Member Cole Wells. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wish I would have said just exactly what Councilmember Groves said. I'm in total alignment with him. But just a couple of other points. I think this measures your day, which I am going to vote against the effects of Pyrrhic victory. It yes, the makers of it are successful. But there's all this talk about, well, but we need to fix it. We recognize tourism promotion is important, which was covered, and the other striking amendment that was denied. I'm also concerned that we'd be setting a precedent here. CenturyLink Field will be coming back to government, asking for more money. We possibly will have an NBA team and an NHL team, possibly a key arena. The storm had a magnificent victory last night. Total agreement with what Councilmember Yvonne Wright Burris said and gives us an opportunity to cheer. And the closer the game, the better and the more we get emotionally involved with that. And it really does uplift a lot of people's lives. But this money is not needed by the Mariners, period. It's a business, a profit making business that is, as I understand, on the verge of going into the black. But the PFA is willing to give up the profit sharing, even though there would be some coming in in exchange for the Mariners taking care of the maintenance and upkeep and upgrades, whatever needs to be done to meet the applicable standards for the ballpark to be in the top third of ballparks in the whole country and I guess in Canada. And we don't need to be having the taxpayers pay this. And I think everybody up here knows that. The Mariners can do what they want with their business and they're wildly succeeding. So why should we be putting taxpayer's money into that? It doesn't add up. I will, of course, work with my colleagues to come up with something. I just don't know where. We have the money to restore funding that was included in the executive's proposal. And my amendment. Are four of us having that amendment? Where do we take it from? To build up tourism funding? It doesn't add up yet. People here are going to vote for this striking, amended, striking amendment with this promise that we will find the magical solution in ten days. We'll try. I think we all should try. But I. I will be surprised if it comes out at the commitment that is being made to a private, for profit business that does not have to pay for property taxes like our citizens do, that will not share the naming rights revenue that they bring in with the public. There are just too many things that this does not make a good deal for our public. Therefore, I'm voting no. Elsewhere. McDermott. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We've had many divided votes this morning and early afternoon and only one unanimous vote on the title amendment. But I think that we have but I want to point out what we all have voted on the. Non relocation. And in on the relocation. I did if you wouldn't mind, Grant, I calculated my batting average on my amendments for 28. Not good in politics, but not bad in baseball. So we have differed. We have differed and had divided votes in a lot. But what have we all voted for? We have all voted to allocate half of the hotel motel tax revenue to affordable housing, and we've all voted to make some investment in the publicly owned stadium. I look forward to working with my colleagues over the coming ten days to address more work in this Stryker and this ordinance as we move it out of committee. And I ask for members support. Thank you, Counsel Chair McDermott. Councilmember Dunn. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Appreciate that long and robust debate. I think we did a pretty good job on all sides addressing and debating the substantive merits of this. And I feel good about the way the council is functioning and the role that the state has forced upon us, quite frankly, here. This is about $5 million a year. This number, 135 million, is a 25 year time horizon. So every biennium we're talking about $10 million and our biennial budget for the county is $10 billion. So this is one roughly give or take in the budget. And it may if I'm wrong, but it's about 1/1000 of the money flowing through the county on a regular basis. Okay. Costs ballpark and. Then. Thank you three. And you, sir, you throw a wild pitch here, but I'm sorry there, bat. I won't use any more of those analogies, but let's, let's, let's back up. So everybody's arguing here. We're not arguing over the pie. We're arguing over how three sections of the pie are configured. I mean, that's really what's going on here. So it's priorities, whether you're going to value infrastructure improvements at the stadium or affordable housing or the arts or money going into tourism promotion. So that's sort of what we've been fighting over. The bigger picture is the issue of housing costs, of housing, affordable housing. This is a little different right now than homelessness, but it's interrelated because the higher the price of housing, the more people are priced out of the market and end up on the streets. And I just want to remind this county council that we're ones that are hugely responsible for the cost of housing, the Growth Management Act, which requires that we put an urban growth boundary down the middle of our county to decide what is buildable land inside cities and what is rural, unincorporated, very land in this county. Chose many years ago to draw that line very close in to Puget Sound. And so even though this county, believe it or not, borders Yakima County some 65 miles away from here, we've chosen to make most of the vast majority of the land in this county essentially unbelievable zoning and are a 20 forest and range one house per 80 acres, etc.. And so I'm foreshadowing something that's broader and also university watch a study by two years ago said that the average cost of a house is $200,000 higher for the average house just because of environmental regulation. And so it's a lot higher today than it was then. So we just need to be really sensitive here about the way we are planning for growth moving forward. And I love to drive right to Esquire's Edge and be in the forest for the next 80 miles. I love that. But that policy choice affects directly the people on the street today. And so we need to be thinking much more carefully about how we plant. Not only do we need to go up, and I do think we need to go up, we might need to go out a little bit and the yoga might need to be tweaked a little. I think in ten years there will be a fight in sincerity on that issue because the House causing cost of housing will be so high. But anyway, back to this. I'm going to support this on final passage. You're not going to move me over the next ten days appreciably. So I am where I am on this issue, out of support of $280 million. I think the infrastructure improvements on the stadium are important not just for the Mariners but for the potential for all the other events that we put on there for the possibility of the Olympics in the future, we're going to need that stadium. There's a lot of different reasons why. And if you knew how much money we spend on fish culverts. All right, or our roads or bridges, $5.4 million a year to keep up that stadium is just tiny. It really is tiny when you be thinking bigger. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Councilmember done for myself. $135 million is $135 million tax increase on working families and property owners in this county. Because we're going to ask the voters for that money to to fund affordable housing. Tonight will be in shoreline at the Regional Affordable Housing Task Force. The last check I saw, there were 300 homeless students in Shoreline School District, just part of my district, $135 million that were apparently going to invest into Safeco Field would build with our leverage ratio, 1500 units of housing. It would house those kids five times over. That's the choice that is being made on this dais today. House kids or maintain a stadium. I can't I don't understand it. The priorities are not appropriate just on that measure alone and I have to be against it. Marco Calderon. I'm sorry. That's a fair point. I don't get too close to it like that, do I, Mr. Chair? Who would like to. Close on final bid? Sponsor. Mr. Wonderful. I want to acknowledge you again, but I also want to acknowledge my colleagues who are part of the five. I'd like to speak. With all due respect to all five members who voted with us, Councilmember Balducci in particular, she was very willing to meet with me on regular occasion, regular meetings. She knew that I was coming from a much different figure than she was. But we worked together. And I want to thank she and John McDermott as well in particular, and also, of course, councilmembers Dunn and Lambert for their effort as well, because all five of us are not in the same place we began. We came together on a mutually agreeable plan that did not include what we all wanted. And I want to thank all five of my call for my other colleagues for doing this. The last thing, Mr. Chair, to close debate is on July 15th of this year, the Shell Mariners Safeco Field had its 19th anniversary. To that date, 45 million people attended Safeco Field. That is the vote that I count on. There are people who have come from all over the county, all over this region of the state, all over the United States and outside the United States to come to save Scott Field. It is a magnet that benefits so many people across the board. And lastly, I cannot tell you how important I think it is to bring this very diverse community together. When I walk out of that stadium and walk back through the alleyway and pass CenturyLink to come back up here after games, I'm just so impressed by the diversity of people walking out of there all ages, all cultures, all backgrounds, all politics. But they care about baseball because baseball brings people together. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all for your thoughtful and vigorous debate today. I've really appreciated watching each of you work. It's been an honor and a privilege to be a part of the debate and discussion. We will call the vote as our representative democracy calls for. Go ahead, Mark. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Banducci. Hi. Councilmember Dunn. All right. Councilmember Ferguson. Oh. Councilmember Caldwell. So. Councilmember Lambert. Councilmember McDermott. I felt a member of the group. Councilmember Bond Right there. All right. Mr. Chair. No, Mr. Chair, the vote has five eyes, four nos. Okay. We've given a do pass recommendation to this ordinance. We will advance it to the full council. I suspect we don't want it on consent. All right. We'll have it on the regular calendar. The other two ordinances listed on today's agenda are really muted by the failure of the amendment to send this to the advisory ballot question