AN ORDINANCE relating to the City Light and Seattle Public Utilities Departments; temporarily removing the charge of interest on delinquent utility consumption and utilization accounts; superseding several sections under Title 21 that authorize and require the collection of interest on delinquent utility consumption and utilization accounts; declaring an emergency; and establishing an immediate effective date; all by a 3/4 vote of the City Council.
Agenda item two? Constable 119 758. Relating to the City Light and Seattle. Public Utilities. Departments temporarily removing the charge of interest on delinquent utility consumption and utilization accounts, superseding several sections under Title 21 that authorize and. Require the collection of interest on delinquent utility. Consumption and utilization accounts. Declaring an. Emergency and. Establishing an immediate effective date all by 3/1 vote of the City Council. Thank you to the clerk for that. We're going to go through the same process that we did with item number one. So I'm going to move to pass it. I'll need a second. Then we will go ahead and invite the prime sponsor, who is Councilmember Peterson, to speak to the bill. We will then suspend the rules to allow central staff to address the council and answer any questions. Councilmember Peterson and I believe Councilmember Lewis have some substitutions and an amendment, and then we will go ahead and consider those and then vote on the full bill. So that is the the run of show, as they say, for this particular item. So I'm going to move to pass Council Bill 119758. Second. It's been moved and seconded to pass the bill again. Council members please note that Eric McKinney and Brian Goodnight of Council Central Staff have joined this meeting. Should you have any questions? I will move to suspend the rules if there are any questions for central staff after the prime sponsor speaks to the bill. Councilmember Peterson, would you like to address this bill? Yes. And welcome back, Council President Gonzales. And thank you for leading with a moment of silence for all of those suffering from the COVID 19 emergency. So with this of course, with this public health emergency becoming an economic crisis to all levels of government need to provide immediate financial relief. And that includes relief from the utility bills that all households, small businesses and nonprofits face each month with necessary public health protocols resulting in restaurants, cafes, other social establishments closing. Many of our neighbors are seeing reduced paychecks or layoffs, and the last thing they need to worry about are bills for essentials like electricity, water and garbage removal . So this legislation I'm sponsoring, council bill 119758 will waive all late fees for utility bills to provide additional relief for hundreds of thousands throughout Seattle during this crisis. In addition to thanking the mayor, I'd like to commend both Deborah Smith of Seattle City Light and Mummy Hara, the head of the Seattle Public Utilities. This effort builds upon a separate policy of no shutoffs, which is a humane policy that our utility departments put in place in large part due to the leadership of Councilmember Mosquito. I also want to thank Councilmember Ed Lewis for requesting an amendment that we will consider shortly that will make it crystal clear that nonprofit 501c3 organizations would also benefit from this legislation. This ordinance would waive late fees and interest charges from both Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities until the mayor's emergency declaration is terminated, or August one, which whichever comes first. If the COVID 19 emergency lasts beyond August one, the Council can take additional action to extend this waiver. So I am prepared to move the substitute and I can explain that, but let me know if that's the appropriate time. I think what we're going to do first is I'm going to go ahead and suspend the rules to allow council central staff to address the council if they need to, and then we can go ahead and move it into substitution. In the last Council member Peters, do you believe that speaking to the substitution first would be would allow for a smoother conversation with council central staff. Yes. The substitute is is fairly simple in that it makes it. Yeah. Why don't you go ahead and go through the substitution first. Just describing it will will hold off on the moving of the substitution until after we've had an opportunity to hear from council central staff. So go ahead and speak to that substituted substitution. Sure. So version two, the substitute makes it easier to administer this ordinance by clarifying that the income for small businesses is based on the annual receipts from 2019. It also adds some, whereas clauses to underline the public health emergency that we are in. Great. That's a very simple, clearer explanation of that substitution. I appreciate that. I'm going to go ahead and suspend the rules now. So if there is no objection, the council rules will be suspended to have council central staff address the council. Hearing no objection. The rules are now suspended. And I would invite Eric and Brian to provide us with any additional information about this particular council bill for consideration by council members. Hello. This is the Carnegie on the council's central staff. Thank you, Consul President. At this point, I don't have anything that I think is more clear than has been already offered. I am on the line. It would be happy to answer any questions. I will add a separate from the bill. It's already been mentioned that this bill is a part of a package utility relief that the city is offering. Under the emergency, the utilities will not be shut off. Folks can apply for flexible payment plans and the utility discount program has been opened up more broadly for folks to self-certify and make it easier for people to get into that program. So I just wanted to take the moment to mention those aspects of utility relief the city is offering in tandem with the effects of this bill. Great. Brian, anything to to add? I don't have anything at this time. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Eric and Brian, for being on the line and for and for being available for questions. So I'm going to go ahead and in the same fashion as I did on item one, I'm going to roll call each of you to see if any of you have any questions. If you do not have questions, just say that you do not. And we'll go ahead and move on to considering the substituted version of the bill. So we'll start with Councilmember Herbold. Any questions for council central staff or the prime sponsor? Yes. Thank you for council central staff as it relates to the impact of the bill, both to the utilities in the reduced. Revenue in. Interest payments, as well as the reduction to the general fund, the estimate to the reduction to the general fund. Can you let us know whether or not these impacts are eligible for. Federal. Reimbursement? Councilmember, thank you for the question. This is Brian Goodnight. I believe we would have to check with the department about that. That's not information that we have at this time. I think it might be useful for all of these bills coming forward that have financial impacts that I would have thought to ask, I might have asked as it related to additional CDBG fund allocations in the future or. Reimbursement. Under the COVID 19 crisis. It might just be a good standard practice for all of these revenue impacts to ask CBO whether or not the actions that we're taking to that that have financial impacts are our actions that we can receive reimbursement for under COVID 19. Okay. Thank you, Councilmember. We will follow up with you on that. Any other questions, Councilmember Herbold? None. Thank you so much. Councilor Morales, any questions or comments on the bill for counsel, central staff or the prime sponsor? I don't have questions, but I second Councilmember Herbold request that we keep in mind anything that we could possibly get reimbursed for later. I'm sure CBO is doing that, but the recovery plan is also on my mind, and that's an important piece of it. Great. Thank you. Council Salon. Any questions for council central staff of the prime sponsor or comments about the bill? None. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Peterson, I know you've already spoken to the bill, but any additional questions for council central staff or comments that you'd like to make? No, thank you. Councilmember Suarez, same questions or comments. About the. Building. Thank you. Councilmember strauss, any questions or comments about the bill? Great Bill. No comments, little questions. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Lewis, any questions or comments about the bill? Not at this time. Thank you. And Councilmember mosqueda, any questions or comments about the bill? Thank you. The president I first, I want to thank Councilmember Peterson for all of your work that you're doing for those who are on limited incomes already, and especially thinking about them in the post-COVID world as it relates to families and to businesses. Given the financial impact that this public health crisis could have. I want to also come in the folks at Seattle City Light, who we've been engaged with since Mesa last year. Thank you for the shout out early, Erica Peterson and a huge shout out to the folks at Seattle City Light for their creative thinking, not only with stopping the implementation of shut off notices, but to being really open and receptive to community feedback on how to improve a number of their communications. So I look forward to a future conversation in your committee. Councilmember Peterson, where I think our council colleagues will be able to hear a number of provisions that they've put into place. Waiving late fees is a really great first step. And some of the other things that they're looking at that we really appreciate is how to simplify the language to make sure that notifications are less scary and intimidating, especially in times like these. Ensure that we're using language that is inviting to understand the ways in which payments can be done. And I'm looking forward to a future conversation about basically debt forgiveness at some point, given some of the conversations that have happened in other municipalities. As I say that I also recognize we need to be looking at the revenue impacts. And in our conversations with the Budget Director of Venable, we've been asking a number of questions on each of the executive orders. I really appreciate the suggestions from our colleagues to make sure that that is presented as we look at the various executive orders. I will echo that call and look forward to the future conversations about how we not only address the crisis now, but make sure that we're budgeting for the future recovery and that the funding going, especially to those in the biggest crisis. And right now, I think that this is an excellent example of us following through on those priorities and values in this legislation. So thanks again to Councilmember Peterson and to the mayor's office for their good work on this. Thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda. That concludes the roll call on any questions or comments on the bill. I want to thank Council Central Staff Brian and Eric for being available for questions and for presentation. Thank you so much for being available. So I'm going to go ahead and hand it back to Councilmember Peterson, who needs to say the magic words, move the substitution formally. Yes, I'd like this is Councilmember Peterson. I move to amend council bill 119758 by substituting version two. Version two is, as I described earlier. And we need a second. Second back. Okay. It's been moved and seconded to substitute the bill. Councilmember Peterson has already addressed the substitution as the prime sponsor of that substitution. Are there any other comments on the substitute? Hearing none will the clerk call the roll on the substitute. Councilmember Strauss. I. Councilmember Herbold. I. Council member, Maurice. I. Council member, Lewis. Hi. Councilmember Morales. I. Councilmember Macheda. I. Councilmember Peterson. I. Council members want. I. President Gonzalez, I. Nine in favor, nine opposed. Thank you. The motion carries and the bill is amended. Are there any further comments on the bill as amended? Councilman Peterson, any additional comments? Well, I would like to discuss amendment number one, which was published along with the agenda. Excellent. So I will go ahead and hand it over to you to discuss and ultimately move amendment number one. Thank you, Council President. So amendment number one, which was published along with this agenda, would amend section two of the substitute. And what it does is and I want to thank Councilmember Andrew Lewis for raising this and working with me and central staff on this to get this done. It will clarify, make it crystal clear that nonprofits are also getting the waiver of the late fees. So what it does is in section two, it adds a subclause, saying customers that are nonprofit organizations as defined under Seattle Municipal Code Section 5.30.040. C and basically saying that's 501c3 organization. So what we would consider as a traditional mission driven nonprofit would be crystal clear that they are exempt or we were giving the fees for them to. Great. I'm going to go ahead, Casmir Peterson, and ask you to say the magic words and move this for consideration. And then we'll go ahead and open it up for questions or comments. Thank you. So I move to amend Council Bill 119758 Section two as presented on Amendment one on the agenda. Second. It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill. Councilmember Peterson has already spoken as to that amendment as the prime sponsor. Are there any comments or additional information for Council member consideration by Council central staff? Uh, President, this is Carnegie. I don't have anything to add. Great. And Brian, nothing bad. Nothing to add. Thank you. Great. Excellent. Okay. Are there any comments on the proposed amendment? Uh, that's Councilmember Lewis. Madam President, I have a couple of questions at the appropriate time. Yes. Council member Lewis. The floor is yours for questions. Oh, sorry. Well, I. I don't have any questions. I just have a comment. Great, Councilman. No. I just. I called for question. Sounds like nobody had any questions. I'm now going to hand it over to you to provide some comments on the bill, please. All right. Thank you. So I just want to first thank Councilmember Peterson for working with me on this and putting this amendment forward. Obviously, District seven has a massive concentration of arts organizations in the city. The arts are really, really reeling from the response from COVID 19, given that so many of our artistic events involve gatherings of large numbers of people . They have just been absolutely slammed as an industry with a lot of workers who, as we know, unfortunately, do not receive the renumeration that they should for the cultural contributions that they make so they have a particularly vulnerable population. One thing that has come up in talking to arts organizations in my district is that utilities are an ongoing concern for them. Most of them are organized as mission driven nonprofits. So I just wanted to make sure that the opportunities that we are looking to create, to provide relief through this ordinance, be set up in such a way that those arts organizations could take advantage of this as well. So I want to thank him for his leadership. It's been good to work with him on this over the last couple of days, and I do hope that my colleagues will join me in supporting the amendment. Thank you, Councilmember Lewis, are there any other comments on the amendment? Hearing not. Oh, go ahead. Sorry. Council President. This is Tourism Council Member Locator. Um, I do have a question, and I hope it's appropriate to ask an hour of central staff. I can hold it for the overall bill if that's more appropriate. If it's a question about the overall bill, I'd ask you to hold that question for when I solicit comments and questions about the the bill as a whole. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Great. Okay. So we're are just voting on the amendment right now. So we'll if are there any other comments or questions about the amendment? A hearing on Will Clarke call the role on the amendment. Council member strauss. I. Council members are both. I. Councilmember suarez i. Councilmember Lewis. I. Councilmember Morales. I councilmember muscular. I. Councilmember Peterson. I. Councilmember. So what? I. President Gonzalez. I. Nine in favor, nine opposed. Thank you so much. The motion carries and the bill is amended. Are there any questions or comments on the bill as amended? And I believe, Councilman Mosquito, you indicated that you had a question. Thank you so much, council president. This may be a question for either the sponsor or the central staff. Our utility fees also waived for our nonprofit partners in in contracts with the Human Services Department and other city providers. Yes. Because they would be under this definition of the Seattle Municipal Code, the 501c threes. Thank you for clarifying that. Thank you so much, Councilmember Ms.. Mascara. Any other questions or follow up? No, I just I think that that's an important reminder for folks. A lot of our service providers are really trying to stretch their dollars right now as they respond to the COVID crisis as well. So I think this is going to be very welcome for them. Um, I think that Plymouth and the City, for example, we saw their presentation in years past about the cost of utilities. So thank you for thank you for that clarification. Great. Thank you so much for the for the question. Are there any other comments or questions on the bill as amended? Harry Dunn. Will the clerk call on the passage of the bill as amended? Councilmember Strauss. I. Councilmember Herbold. I asked Councilmember Juarez. I. Council member, Lewis. By Councilmember Morales. I council member must get up. I don't remember Peterson. I never saw one. I President Gonzalez I nine in favor and then opposed. The bill passes as amended and the chair will sign it. Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf? All right, folks, that was our last item of business on the agenda. And we have no other items to discuss for today. So that concludes our item of business on today's agenda. Our next meeting will be Monday, March 23rd at 2 p.m.. Council is now adjourned. Thank you all and be safe and healthy.