AN ORDINANCE amending Ordinance 126000, which adopted the 2020 Budget; making appropriations from the Emergency Fund for public assistance during the COVID-19 civil emergency; making an appropriation from the General Fund for public assistance during the civil emergency; and making appropriations from the Revenue Stabilization Fund for public assistance during the civil emergency; all by a 3/4 vote of the City Council.
Every part of the Select Budget Committee agenda and one constable 119812 amending ordinance 126000, which stopped the 2020 budget making appropriations for an emergency fund for public assistance during the COVID 19 Civil Emergency. The committee recommends that the bill passes amended by the council with the. Yes, he recommends the bill passes amended. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Okay, so let's go ahead and dig into this particular item. Let's see. Councilmember skate as chair of the committee. You are recognized in order to address this item. Thank you, Madam President. And just to be clear, did you want items one and two together or item one as a standalone? Thank you for the reminder. Clarke Madam Clerk, can you please also read item number two into the record just to allow for debate on both? But we will take votes separately on both issues, but just to allow for discussion of both. I'd appreciate it if you could also read an agenda item to. Agenda Item two Resolution 31957 Establishing spending details by year end program area for the spending plan adopted by the audit of Capital 119811 that establish at the authorized use of the proceeds generated from the payroll expense tax authorized by the ordinances reduces capital 119810. The committee recommends that the resolution be adopted. This amendment council members must gather purpose. Gonzalo Suarez, Luis Morales, the watch and Strauss in favor with an abstention from Councilmember Peterson. Thank you, madam. Claire. Again, thank you, Councilmember Musketeer, for the reminder to read both into the record. Appreciate that. I will go ahead and hand it over to you because we're mosquitoes chair of the committee so that you can address both both items. There are a couple of amendments for some amendments for consideration. And I will go ahead and take those up after you do a general introduction of both the Council bill and the resolution, what is yours? Thank you, Madam President. I want to thank my Council colleagues for your tremendous work on items. One Council Bill 119812 and item two Resolution 31957. Together, these make up the jump start revenue spend plan, both for immediate COVID relief and ongoing support for small businesses, working families, seniors, our most vulnerable, and our business community as we create a more resilient economy as we recover from COVID. I'll speak to both items real quickly in order to tee up our future conversations for both the bills and the amendments. Just like, again, reiterating my tremendous appreciation for all of you, your offices, our central staff, the community at large, and my office. My office spent hundreds of hours on the phone with community partners working through the details of the Jumpstart Spend plan and the previous proposal to raise revenue. This was built off of tremendous advocacy and organizing efforts and community and among organizations who are calling for a more progressive proposal to be in front of us, to pass progressive revenues so that we can address the immediate crisis that is presenting itself because of COVID and the ongoing need for us to invest in housing and support services to create a more equitable economy. I'm really proud of the work that we have put together here as a council. As a full council, we have come together and we've provided feedback to each other and incorporated information that came directly from communities, including from organizations who are led by communities of color, including from feedback from large and small businesses, including feedback from labor unions and immigrant rights organizations, housing advocates and homeless advocates, transportation and environmental justice advocates . As you look at this final proposal in front of us with the detailed spend plan and emergency COVID relief, it has the input from a tremendous amount of individuals and organizations who we deliberately worked with to create the spend plan and the COVID relief. It invests in promoting health and creating jobs and reigniting our economy in a more equitable way. It includes small businesses and immigrant rights advocates and environmental justice. Those are folks who get credit. We want to make sure that the folks who put pressure on from the outside tax, Amazon organizers and activists, individuals and communities who for years have been calling for progressive fare. Now you all get credit and council colleagues, you get credit. We got this over the line. We worked tremendously hard and in a collaborative way to make history. We're pushing forward a tremendous amount of support for our most vulnerable communities and reinvesting in our local economy, because that is what the data says to do. And all cuts, budget or austerity approaches in the time of a recession only prolong pain for both local economies and our most vulnerable residents. So the detailed spend package, the proposal in front of you for immediate COVID relief will help support families, small businesses and our most vulnerable. Because you all came together and we pushed this proposal forward with tremendous feedback and input. I actually think that having conversations with folks via Zoom and calling in options created more opportunity for community partners to provide public testimony. People who were able to call in between shifts, people who are home taking care of loved ones were able to engage in this public policy process in addition to our traditional avenues that we've offered when we are meeting in Non-Covid times. The public input on this has been tremendous, and we want to thank all of you for your input to the COVID relief proposal, to the long term spending proposal, and to the Jumpstart tax package. This is what happens. This is what it looks like to lift up the voices of those shut out by establishment politics of the past, who listen to what a community needs, who find ways to get to Yes, this is what happens when we have folks in office who don't accept the way things have always done, who aren't going to just give lip service, voice of action, who are smart, collaborative, progressive and frankly, this council. We're tired as well. We are tired of being in a declared state of emergency for housing and homelessness for year after year and not seeing more money go into housing. In fact, this was the third year in a row where the mayor's proposed budget reduced the city's input on housing. We're tired of being in a state of emergency for homelessness and seeing the number of homeless folks grow year after year without a safe place, especially in a COVID setting to be in non congregate shelters like the CDC demands. We are tired of being in one of the most prosperous cities in the nation and lauded for our progressive values. Well, one in four children go without the needed food that they need because of food insecurity. And we're tired of the same old rhetoric about the need for austerity and the need for cuts being drummed up on the cusp of a depression. When we know that cuts only prolong recessions and the past cuts that we have seen imposed in our state and in our region in the past time of a recession only hurt families and businesses. We need alternatives. And this progressive revenue proposal and the spend plan and COVID relief offers that create a solution. We're tired on behalf of our constituents, and that's why we're acting. We're tired of those constituents are tired of doing everything right, but not being able to get ahead, not being able to keep a roof over their head or put food on the table because they realize and they've been calling on us to have action for so many years because in doing everything right, they still see an economy that prioritizes the few while leaving the many behind. So this is our way to push back. This is our pushback against status quo politics in an in the middle of a deadly global pandemic with the highest rates of unemployment and business closures ever. We are doing something that has been proven to invest in our most vulnerable, to spur local economic activity and create a more resilient and equitable economy by passing Jumpstart Revenue Plan and the detailed spend plan today. We are offering relief relief to families that they will be able to pay rent, relief to individuals, that they will be able to put food on the table. Relief to small businesses. That they will have flexible dollars they've been asking for to pay for what they need to open businesses again and put people back to work by passing Jumpstart. We have identified the resources that resources needed to provide COVID relief in this year to make sure that people's urgent needs are met due to COVID . Next year, we're investing in core government services to keep parks open, to keep libraries open, to make sure child care can function. To make sure that the basic services that we rely on every day don't have a cliff. And in the out years, we're investing in building housing, housing those who are homeless and investing in small business supports. I want to make sure that folks know we have done this in a thoughtful, in a creative and a deliberative manner. We have not spent down the entirety of the emergency funds to clarify any misperceptions that are being put out there. We are offering relief, assistance, security and stability. So again, thank you for doing all that you've done to make sure in 2020 we have emergent needs met in 2021. We maintain essential government services like parks and safe streets and libraries. And in 2022 that we invest deeply in supporting a diverse business and local economy and housing those who need support. Now. I really appreciate all that you've done. We've put forward a smart proposal. We've used the very few tools that we have in our toolbox and a legally sound way. We are rebuilding our economy in the out years, and we're investing in those who need the support right now. I really appreciate all that you've done and I'll have some more closing comments in a bit, but just so incredibly proud to work with all of you and to work with the entire community, organizations and individuals who've helped make Jumpstart and the Spend Plan and Relief Package a reality today. Well, said council member Muscat. It makes me all excited about calling this to a vote soon. Okay, folks, we do want to hear comments from folks about the bill and the resolution. We do have a couple of amendments that we've got to work through. I will take those separately. So before we open it up, as we traditionally and typically do, to hear comments about the the the bill. I'm going to go ahead and ask Councilmember Strauss to address Amendment One as published on the agenda. So I'm going to hand it over to Councilmember Strauss to walk us through his, I believe, two amendments. And then we will consider that amendment and call the bill to a. Excuse me. Then we will consider amendments to the resolution, and then we will have two amended versions of legislation before us and open it up for general comment. So, Councilmember Strauss, you are up first. I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to you to address to move your Amendment One and to open up debate for that. Thank you. Council President. Just double checking to hear what I thought. I heard. You would like me to move the amendment. Is that correct? Yes, if you. I don't. Thank you. You're not required to. But it is your opportunity to move your amendment. So if you wish. Wonderful. Thank you so much. A move to amend council bill 119812 as presented on Amendment one on this agenda. Is there a second? I can. It's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment One. Councilmember Strauss, you are recognized in order to address the substance of the amendment. Thank you. Council President. Amendment one would increase the Small Business Stabilization Fund Grant Funds eligibility to 25 FTE. Last week I spoke to my you as my colleagues and the public about the need to change the requirements from fixed employees to full FTE full time equivalent to allow for part time worker to also have consideration for part time workers. What I have heard in the interim is that the need to increase that threshold to 25 is there and is in our cities. So this amendment increases eligibility for the Small Business Stabilization Grants funded by the bill to include nonprofits and businesses with up to 25 FTE ees as an increase from ten. I had heard a lot of concern about the impacts of COVID on restaurants specifically and the anticipated wave of potential closures that could be coming soon. Resident restaurateurs from District six and across the city have told me that FTE ten FTE is not high enough for them to capture many of the restaurants in need of our support . While restaurants are a labor intensive industry, it often exceeds ten FTE fees, and restaurants also oftentimes survive on the narrowest of margins. So in addition to raising the cap on FTE, this amendment would also add language ensuring that businesses that have already received a grant through prior funding are not eligible for a second grant and adding a geographic equity as a consideration in the distribution of of the grants. The reason that the coming round for the second grant is being put in in this amendment is because we do not have enough money in our funds to even serve all of the small businesses that I have applied to want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to receive funds before people come for a second dip. So. Those are my comments. Council President and I appreciate the consideration. Thank you, Councilmember Strauss, for that description of Amendment One. I'm going to go ahead and open it up for debate. I've already received one message. And that is from Councilmember Juarez, who would like to make comment. Colleagues of anyone else would like to make a comment. Please signal by raising your hand or sending me a message in the chat box. Okay, go ahead. I see you, Councilwoman Morales. First up, Councilmember was. Thank you. I will be supporting this amendment. As with Councilmember Strauss, I have been hearing a lot from small businesses citywide, not just District five in particular, also from the SBA, from the queer community on Capitol Hill and their small businesses, that it simply would not work and essentially wait many of them out if we did not do an increase from 1050 to 25. And I think I don't need to go into all the detail about where we're at with this recession and small businesses and COVID. But my point is, in order to, at least to some degree, keep some of these businesses open who are barely hanging on. I will be supporting this amendment. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Morales. Thank you. Council President. I. I will say that I am struggling with this amendment. I know. That we have you know, we just. We just included language in. Our Green New Deal and our equitable development language in. The earlier. Part of the progressive revenue package. That really highlights the greater disparities that we have in some neighborhoods. You know, we funded EPA because of the history of. Redlining that has left greater disparities among Southend neighborhoods. So, you know, I'm struggling a little bit because I completely. Understand the need to. Support small businesses across the city. And I know we want to make sure that every neighborhood, you know, that the. Businesses. In every neighborhood, commercial district get access to. Technical assistance and operational support that can that can help them. So I also understand that as a former restaurant worker myself, that many businesses have lots of part time employees. So I understand increasing to 25 FTE is I guess what I would say is if we want to adjust the criteria so that more businesses are eligible, that's one conversation. But we know that businesses who receive funding already in the first round. Were predominantly people of color. And from my perspective, this amendment would eliminate the opportunity for future funding for. Small businesses. Owned by immigrants and people of color and just sort of perpetuating the generational wealth gap. So I am. Not going to. Support this amendment. And I will say that I fully support Amendment two are being offered by Councilmember Strauss, but I can't support Amendment one. Thank you so much. Councilmember Morales, Councilmember Herbold. See here. I'm off mute. Great. So I have a question. You know, I heard loud and clear from when they started this small business stabilization fund that they're they're narrowing of the eligibility to five employees was their best way of ensuring that eligibility was narrowly focused on using an equity lens, narrowly focused on low and moderate income business owners in communities of color, and that in increasing the number of employees for businesses, it makes it a little bit more difficult for us to make decisions with that kind of equity lens. And we've already agreed to increase the eligibility from 5 to 10 employees for for eligibility. And so I just want to see if the if the sponsor, Councilmember Strauss, has any information related to specifically the number of eligible businesses with this increase to to 25. My understanding is that already received 5500 eligible applications for the first round of funding, which was only available at that point to businesses with five or fewer employees . And even though 5500 eligible applications were received, they were only able to make 250 grants. So I'm just wondering, do we have, again, estimates of the number of businesses that would be eligible and and then the number of of grants it would be possible to make with these new funds if we increase the eligibility to to 25 . I remember Strauss. Yeah. Thank you, Councilmember Harold. I do have that information. I don't have it at the tip of my fingertips. So let me see if I can't find it and just send you an email. Right now, I know that you are correct that this would enlarge the pool of eligible businesses to a great degree, which is also why I brought the other two elements to this amendment about not being funded a second time and distribution across the city. I will just raise that. There's even with that distribution across the city, there is still going to be a focus on equity versus just spreading peanut butter across across a number of different businesses. So let me try and find that email about the level of number of businesses that would be able to receive this funding. Any other questions or comments on Amendment One? Okay. I'm not seeing any colleagues. I like Councilmember Morales, am also struggling with this amendment. I did oppose it in a version of it in committee last week. My position has not changed. I think that the points or the questions by Councilmember Herbold are, you know, my primary concern about increasing the amount. So it's important for us to you know, and I was in I worked with Councilmember Strauss on increasing it from 5 to 10. That was work that we did in partnership in order to sort of modulate where we, you know, sort of where we're setting the line for for the size of a small business at about five was probably too small. Ten seemed a little bit more appropriate to really target in on those mom and pop main street shops that we really are hoping to be able to provide assistance to. My concern with opening it up to 25 FTE is it seems to me to be a pretty aggressive pendulum swing in the opposite direction. And, you know, 25 of those could be up to 50 employees or maybe even more. And I worry that when we start getting into that number, that volume of employees, that we're no longer talking about a small business in the way that we intend. So for that reason, I'm going to continue to oppose this particular amendment. I certainly appreciate the spirit and the intent with which it was brought forward. But but those issues have unfortunately not been resolved for me from my perspective and from the feedback that I've heard from some small business owners, particularly those small businesses who are owned by folks of color and or immigrants and refugees. So that being said, it sounds like we are ready to take a vote here. So I am going to ask the. I'm sorry. Councilmember Strauss, please. Just wanted to highlight. Thank you. Council president. Just wanted to highlight that we did work in partnership to make the initial change. And I and I appreciated being able to work with you on that. Just saying thanks. Thank you. Councilmembers Grass. I always appreciate working with you as well. Okay. So with that being said, let's go ahead and have the clerk re call the roll on the passage of Amendment one. Lewis, I. MORALES No. Macheda. I. PETERSON. All right. So what. They. Excuse me. I'm sorry. So long. No. Thank you. Strauss. I. Purple. They? Juarez. I. President Gonzalez. Now. Five in favor, four opposed. The motion carries an amendment. One is adopted. Are there any. I'm sorry. Before I open it up for general debate. I understand there is a Second Amendment also brought forward by Council Member Strauss, so I'm going to recognize you, Councilmember Strauss, in order for you to move the amendment. Thank you. Council President. Sorry, I'm just having some technical difficulties with these screens. Thank you for your time and thank you for the consideration. Colleagues on my amendments, I move to amend Council Bill 119812 as presented on an amendment to on the agenda. Is there a second? It's been moved and seconded to adopt amendment to. Councilmember Strauss, I'm going to hand it back over to you and recognize you in order to address amendments to the Council. If you don't mind. And there is a recently distributed version two of Amendment two that I just want to make sure was before the city council, before Councilmember Strauss addressed amendment number two. You're saying that I need to suspend the rules? See. It's only a correction. It does not it does not change the facts of the amendment. It just corrects some technical numbers in the amendment. So it matters. It's all in line. And numbers try to see what it might addressing and whether she was able to. Okay. So we don't. Madam Clerk, just so I'm clear on the procedure here, we don't need to amend the motion language that was just made by Councilmember Strauss. You just need him to, for the record, address what the changes are to the most recently distributed version of Amendment two. Correct. Okay. So the bill has excuse me, the amendment has been moved and seconded. And so, Councilmember Strauss, again, I'm going to ask you to address Amendment two as it was recently circulated. So in doing so, if you could explain for the record what the difference is between the published version of Amendment two and the recently circulated version of Amendment two that would be required per our city clerk. Thank you. Council President. This the changes between what was just attached to the agenda and what was distributed is a simply. Let's see the updated amendment. And this is simply an admission to AIDS funding increase in Section four as reflected in the table and corrects the table y number to the column to reflect the added funding increase . Thank you so much, Councilmember Strauss. Would you like to make any other remarks or comments about Amendment two? Yes, thank you. Council president. This amendment would add $4.7 million to the to the funding for small businesses support. I came to this number because it would bring the total funding for small businesses support to 25% of the 2020 Jumpstart expenditures, a request that I've heard from small businesses. And despite what some have said today, this does not run down our rainy day or emergency funds. To complete an additional $4.7 million means about 450 more small businesses in our communities will receive grants. That may be the difference between weathering this pandemic or closing down for good. I recognize that there is a concern with spending additional dollars out of the revenue stabilization fund, which is why this amendment is about half the size of the previous amendment that I brought last week. As with the other 2020 expenditures, if this amendment passes, I will be bringing an amendment to Resolution 31957 to replenish the Revenue Stabilization Fund in 2021. We know that when small businesses stay open and keep employees, more people are able to spend money in our economy. This is exactly how and the importance of the middle class. When the middle class has the dollars to spend in the economy, it keeps activity moving as well. More taxes are collected as these businesses stay open. I urge my colleagues to consider the crisis that small businesses are facing right now and allow us to scale our response to the stimulus package. Thank you. Council President. Thank you. Councilmember Strauss. Are there any comments or questions? Councilmember Lewis. Thank you, Madam President. And I want to thank Councilmember Strauss for bringing this forward, as I did last week. I think that it is important that we talk about what we can do for the small businesses that are struggling throughout this crisis and trying to really make ends meet under really unique and extreme pressures. I just think that given the amount of borrowing that we are doing from our emergency reserves, I am not in a position where I am going to vote to dig even deeper into the remaining amount of slack that we have capped into these reserve funds. Just given all of the other spending that we are committing to and knowing that next year we are going to have to rely on these reserves for a potential additional round of balancing and that preserving. What slack we do currently have in here is something that that I want to make sure that we maintain a commitment to and not dig any deeper. The other thing that I would cite is, is it does look like we are going to get another round of community development block grant money in the in the near term, or at least the executive seems to be optimistic that we're going to get another round of community development block grant money. Those funds have formed the core of our direct relief to small businesses. So we we have that potentially to look forward to to to come into this space. You know, I do think that part of our fall project in looking at the 2021 budget should include some discussion around some kind of tax relief for small businesses as well. And I know Councilmember Strauss has been a leader on that. I think that those are the things that I would would prefer to focus on rather than continuing to draw down from our reserve funds. So I am going to going to respectfully vote against this. It is hard to vote against it, but I do think that just based on how much we are currently spending or borrowing to be more accurate from our reserve funds, maintaining that the small amount of slack that we do have is is an important priority. So for that reason, I'll be voting no. Thank you, Councilmember Lewis. Any other questions or comments? Councilmember Peterson, followed by Councilmember Mosquito. Thank you. Council president. Thank you, Councilmember Straus, for advancing this. I was happy to support the previous amendment. I do have some concerns with this one. We did receive a correspondence from Deputy Mayor Mike Fong, noting the executive's concern with with spending more of the revenue stabilization fund and zeroing out the emergency fund. I do support the bill as a whole and intend to vote for the bill as a whole. But to do more at this time, I have concerns with you. Just wanted to explain. Explain that. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Peterson. Councilmember Mosqueda. I thank you, Madam President, and thank you to Councilmember Strauss for bringing this forward. Similarly, I appreciate where you were coming from with this. I did support the previous amendments. I am not going to be supporting this one. I want to push back on the false narrative out there that somehow we are using all of the emergency reserves, which is not true in the underlying bill. And in fact, it wouldn't be true with your amendment. Even if it were to hang, there would still be some reserves there. But in line with the initial crafting of the bill and what other council members have said, I think we are intentionally leaving a reasonable amount of funding in the emergency funds for the next year if needed. I will not be supporting this. I do appreciate you bringing it forward and I hope that this offers clarification on the misinformation that was put out about the emergency reserves. I'll say more about this later, but I think this whole conversation really underscores the importance of us having these rainy day funds in emergency reserves. If ever there was a time to use them, it is now. So I think we have done that in a responsible way with the underlying bill. I appreciate where you come from. Sadly, I'll be on on this today, but I really appreciate your work on this and look forward to working with you to support small businesses as we move forward with implementation and getting these dollars out the door. Thank you, Councilmember Mosquito, for those comments. As usual, the sponsor of the amendment will have the last word. Are there any other council members who have any comments or questions on amendment. To see. Councilmember Peterson? Hi. Yeah, I just wanted to clarify my earlier comments. So there are the two funds emergency fund and Revenue Stabilization Fund, and I guess there is money left over from the combined funds. I acknowledge that. I just technically, I think we're are we draining down the emergency fund, but the revenue stabilization fund will have some money left over. I just wanted to clarify. I wasn't trying to. I wanted to clarify that I was just specifically talking about the One Fund. But then there's the other fund that will still have money left over, whether we pass Councilmember Strauss's amendment or not. So thank you for letting me clarify that. Absolutely. Any other comments or questions on Amendment two? Uh oh. And I'm sort of scanning. Looks like no other council members have a comment here. Councilmember Strauss, do you have the final word? Thank you, council president and colleagues for your consideration. Just again, restating that to combat the false narrative that is out there, even with or without this amendment, we would not have been spending all of the rainy day funds, as has been described by some in the city government over the last couple of hours. So with or without this amendment, their city council is not fully utilizing all of our capacity to fight a pandemic and a number of in an economic recession with dollars that have been saved over past years to fight such recessions and unforeseen emergencies. Thank you. Council President. Thank you. Councilmember Truss. Appreciate that. Okay. Colleagues, I'm going to go ahead and close out debate on Amendment two and please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment two as recently circulated. Lewis No. Morales. I. Macheda. So. Peterson now. So what? No. Strauss. I. Purple. They. Juarez. Yes. May I get Morales vote? Morales. I thank you. President Gonzalez. Now. Three in favor. But three in favor, six opposed. Okay. Thank you so much. The motion fails. An amendment to is not adopted. Are there any other further comments on the bill as amended? Councilmember Mosqueda, did you want to have the final word or do you want to speak now? Sure. I just actually was going to offer some clarification for the viewing public on a potential amendment that I was thinking about. And I'm not going to walk on related to tiny house villages, except now's a good time to clarify that. Madam President. Let's announce an amendment to the council bill as opposed to the resolution. Yeah, that's correct. Okay. Let me let me go ahead and recognize you in order to address what could have been an amendment. But is it an amendment? And then we'll take we'll take comments on the bill as a whole, as amended from other colleagues. Councilman Mosquito. Wonderful. There was some conversation last Wednesday about the amendment related to tiny house villages and non congregate settings. While I voted last week to retain the flexibility that I thought was needed to include COVID relief spending with regards to non congregate spending so that it could be used for tiny house villages and things like hotels and motels. I was thinking about offering some clarifying language because we know how important it is for all non congregate settings to have the support that they need for addressing the current COVID crisis, like addressing the ongoing shared bathrooms and shared food areas or eating spaces. And I am really conscious, though, of the fact that tiny house villages, along with hotels and motels, are a much better alternative to existing congregate settings. We were thinking about bringing forward an amendment to clarify some of those pieces just for the viewing audience and for folks who did testify today. The amendment that folks were referring to was adopted last Wednesday, and so the 3.6 million is specifically allocated for tiny house villages. I think to the degree that we can get those villages stood up in quick time and that offers relief to folks who are currently in congregate settings or outside in the elements to have a room , a roof and a secure place to live. Obviously, that's a much better location. We really want the mayor and the executive team to spend those dollars and to the degree that there's any hang ups or concerns. I'm sure we'll be following up with all of the advocates from the house, housing and homelessness advocates to make sure the money gets out the door. But just to offer that clarification, I'm not going to be bringing forward a clarifying amendment today, and the amendment stays within the bill. Thank you, Councilman ROSQUETA. Are there any comments on the bill as amended? Oh, Councilmember, please. And then Councilmember. So. So thank you for the opportunity to provide some closing comments on this really critical action that we are about to take. This is necessary and crucial support to limit the damage being done by this public health emergency and to ensure that Seattle residents, small business owners and nonprofits have the support they need to survive right now. We've learned in the past that engaging in austerity, budgeting and slashing programs only leads to a prolonged struggle to recover, both for individual businesses and individual households and for our economy as a whole. This, for me, is the lesson of the Great Recession the legislation takes to heart and makes targeted investments where they can do the most good. Focusing on small business owners that make our city a special place to live and are operating under significant uncertainty and providing jobs to people in our community and nonprofits that are working tirelessly to care for the people most impacted by COVID and also providing essential jobs in immigrant and refugee communities who are shut out by other forms of relief. And for people who are struggling to pay their rent and those who are attempting to survive unsheltered as well as for small landlords who also rely on rent to pay their bills. And then finally, as it relates to very, very critical food relief, this bill puts a premium on helping households who are struggling to put enough food on the table and whose meal programs have been otherwise shut down. Again, I really appreciate that this has been so targeted for our investments throughout the end of 2020, and I appreciate the opportunity and the privilege to work with council members as well as the broader community who has who has weighed in on this , not just the taxing legislation, but also the spending plan. So thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Herbold, for those remarks. We're going to hear now from Councilmember Swan and then Councilmember Lewis. Thank you. Today's vote by the Seattle City Council, along with the historic Amazon tax victory earlier this month, represents the culmination of three years of determined grassroots rank and file organizing. Our movement has forced the city establishment to dedicate at least $18 million per year from the Amazon tax revenues for publicly owned, permanently affordable housing for black , working class and poor families in the Central District, and has dedicated funds for the Green New Deal and tiny house villages. Our religious one because we overcame the opposition of big business and the political establishment who have fought us every step of the way. Make no mistake about it, the Amazon tax and today's filing for black community housing in the Central District are not the result of political, quote unquote, collaboration with big business, but rather a product of a working class movement led by socialists, by workers, by unions, and by BLM activists. Activists because of whom we won the first of its kind ban on the use and purchase of chemical weapons by the police. And we now see Mayor Durkan attempting to undermine that legislation and also doubling down on her loyal representation of big business interests by refusing to sign the Amazon tax that has been approved by the majority of the Council. Hundreds of voters have volunteered to join this truly grassroots movement. We held for action conferences. We organized protests. We organized a car caravan. But social distancing during the pandemic. We marched in Olympia when they attempted to pass legislation banning our city from taxing big business. We organized the grassroots of the labor movement and progressive organizations. And most importantly, we launched a tax Amazon ballot initiative to represent a concrete and material threat to big business, which was operating in the backrooms to undermine the Amazon backed legislation in the City Council. And in fact, on the streets as part of the Justice for George Floyd movement, we gathered 30,000 ballot initiative signatures before 20,000 in just the first 20 days of the protests. Big businesses themselves have admitted that they were forced to concede to the tax Amazon and the Black Lives Matter movement. As Dave Hooper of even Stellar Restaurants, a company that viciously opposed the Amazon tax and the $15 minimum wage, said, quote, Our industry would have been disproportionately hammered by the Morales proposal. I was trying to protect our industry for sure from the competing proposal that I thought was incredibly harmful, unquote. These quotes and the quote by former Mayor Ed Murray in which he admitted that it was the 15 ballot initiative and he said, I believe that coffee now had the potential of passing and that would have been incredibly detrimental to our restaurants and small businesses, unquote. These are quotes from big business representatives. And they are. They remind us that the interests of the super wealthy and of working people and the poor are diametrically opposed to each other. And what is considered extremely progressive for ordinary people and the majority, the big business and wealthy interests consider it harmful to them, even though they have massive cash reserves and the overwhelming wealth of our society. Even though it's the majority that goes to work and creates that wealth. And that's why it requires a political struggle to win victories for the majority. The political establishment, corporate media and others are fighting to make people believe that progressive change changes like Amazon Tax come from sitting down at a table behind a third door with someone like Steve Hooper to come to a happy compromise. But in real life, the compromises we see are a reflection of the balance of power in society. So if working people understand that this is about power, then we can win greater gains in the future because we will focus the strategy of our movement on building worker power and empower the marginalized and the oppressed. Not to mention the renters who are now going to be facing a tsunami of evictions as soon as the moratoriums are lifted. If, on the other hand, the establishment succeeds in convincing people to put their faith in collaboration with big business, then it will end up building the political power of big business even further and will make future victories for working people and people of color far less likely. I'm thrilled to be able to vote yesterday on the ordinance and the resolution in order to make available tens of millions to fund emergency COVID relief for our communities and the potential to build affordable housing for black and brown communities in the Central District and other parts of the city, and funding the Green New Deal and immediately establishing five new tiny house villages. All of this has been hard fought and hard won. We will need similarly emboldened movements to win gains in the next three weeks. In the summer, budget vote of the Seattle City Council, for which will be on the budget for the remainder of 2020. For those who may have participated with the People's Budget Campaign every year, the last year we will be voting on the fall budget in the in the fall of 2024. The budget of next year. So let's make sure we immediately geared up for winning the victories we want to win in the People's Budget Summer 2020 campaign. We are demanding the police department be funded by at least 50%, which means defunding them by at least $85 million for the rest of this year, and demanding that those funds be transferred into socially constructive causes in the black and brown communities. And to make sure that the city's jobs, the inhumane and ineffective sweeps of homeless neighbors and to fund rent are organizing and eviction defense. So I invite everybody who is watching this to the People's Budget Summer 2020 Rally and March on Tuesday, July 28, at 6 p.m. at Seattle Central College. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. So once we all now. From Councilmember Lloyd. Thank you, Madam President. I'll be brief so we can we can get to the final question here on voting on this today. But I did just want to briefly say that I'm really excited that we're taking this big this big move as a council to really make strong, noticeable and meaningful progress on what was our original state of emergency this year, the massive crisis of so many of our neighbors living on the streets in a in a state of homelessness, sleeping in vehicles, sleeping in tents, and making sure that we as a city are acting with the sense of urgency that that demands and making sure that there is there's meaningful progress that all of us in Seattle want to see. Regardless of our position, we all have that same interest, which is to get folks who are living unsheltered inside, where they can live with dignity and where they can have the support that they need. There are several measures in this plan that we're passing today that will provide that immediate relief in partnership with but with providers and with with our neighbors. And how we have shaped this over the last several months, I'm really proud to have worked with the sponsors and with other members of this council and with Councilman Morales on the amendment regarding the tiny house villages, among other investments that we've made. And Councilmember Mosquito, your leadership in making sure that this was at the forefront of your mind in drafting this relief, to really respond to the the massive amount of tents in our streets with folks in them with nowhere to go. And honestly, the without having those outputs from doing outreach, not making meaningful progress throughout the spring and the early summer. So I'm glad that we finally are doing that. I'm glad that we can finally go back to our constituents and say that we are taking action urgently to have movement on this in 2020 and hopefully the beginning of of even more to come throughout the rest of this plan. So thank you so much. Thank you. Councilmember Lewis, are there any questions, any additional comments on the bill as amended? It looks like there are no additional comments from other colleagues. I also want to say thanks to Councilmember Mosqueda and her staff for all of the work that you all have done to get us to this point. Obviously, last week was a momentous occasion or a couple of weeks ago it was a momentous occasion because we actually voted on the substantive bill. This is another opportunity for us to, again, prioritize those areas of funding that we think are critical in the city's effort to recover from the economic crisis caused by this pandemic, and appreciate the opportunity to continue to be supportive of taking local action where we have not seen action from our state legislature or from our region in terms of addressing the regressive nature of our tax system. And so I do appreciate your ongoing effort to pull together to make sure that we have an opportunity to ask the wealthiest corporations to pay their fair share and to give the council an opportunity. To. Clearly articulate where it is. We want to see prioritization of expenditures. It is my hope that the executive will actually spend these dollars. We can only appropriate dollars. We cannot force the executive, the mayor, to actually spend any dollars at all. But it is my hope that will choose to spend the dollars, as opposed to allowing folks to not reap the benefits of the appropriation choices the City Council is about to make today. By passage of both this Council bill and the upcoming resolution. So thank you, Councilwoman Mosqueda, for your leadership on this. I know there is much more to come through our ongoing budget deliberations. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to you to close out debate on this council bill and the resolution so that we can take a final vote and consider the last pieces of the resolution. Thank you. Council President And thanks also for your stewardship as we helped put together the timeline and the framework to get this bill over the finish line. Council colleagues. It's been through hundreds of conversations with businesses, immigrant rights groups, environmental and housing groups with labor and businesses that Jumpstart came together and everyone said these two things . Residents in Seattle want solutions and they want leadership. Jumpstart Seattle offers solutions and the leadership needed to provide immediate COVID relief and support in the out years to weather this crisis. This proposal that is in front of us, both the revenue that we passed two weeks ago and the detailed spend plan and COVID assistance here was thoughtful , inclusive, strategic, smart and carefully crafted. We welcomed anyone to the table who wanted to advance progressive revenue in Seattle as the prime sponsor of Jumpstart. You can accuse me of a lot of things, but everyone knows I'm inclusive, deliberative and data driven, and you don't have to take it from me. We pulled together economic experts from around the country, economists who said the same thing from Economic Policy Institute, from the University of Massachusetts, from in the Public Interest, from front and center, from Budget and Policy Center. Together, they said that past recessions have proven that when governments invest in small business, housing assistance, food assistance and support for small businesses instead of cuts on austerity, local economies can weather crises in a more equitable way and local economies rebound faster. There is a proven return on investment in the strategies that we're advancing today. We have shown that when we invest in our community and our most vulnerable, there is a multiplier effect and we all benefit. We have very few tools in our tool belt in the state of Washington. We have chosen in the city of Seattle to use one of the tools that is a progressive tool to raise revenue in this vital time. And the proposal in front of us is on solid legal ground. The same attorneys that the mayor relies upon for her legal advice help advise us on crafting this policy. And it is a known fact that payroll taxes are a commonly used tool that one one that's a progressive tool that cities can rely on to raise revenue . We intentionally built off of the legally sound strategy that business and labor and community groups were negotiating in Olympia. And I want to thank Representative Mac Reid for her leadership in Olympia and for her ongoing input on the Jumpstart proposal. When the bill stalled in Olympia, we immediately reengaged with some of the same folks who were engaging in Olympia to assess how we can move forward in Seattle, to act as a good partner with our state and our regional efforts to not just say we're going to wait for the next year, but to truly engage and step in when the state and the region was not able to advance so that we could provide immediate COVID relief and outyear support. So, yes, of course, there's other progressive tools that I have been an advocate for for over a decade, and that includes income tax, that includes capital gains. Thank you, Councilmember Lewis, for advancing those conversations. That includes corporate income tax. But until we have some of those tools that we can advance, we need to provide relief. We are going to do so in a responsible way here with the payroll tax that's in front of us. And of course, I would support an income tax. As we know, the mayor wants that and so many others. We've talked about an income tax, but we cannot in a responsible way implement a flat rate income tax without a rebate. In the conversations that I've had with the mayor, I have been very clear it would be irresponsible for us to impose a flat rate income tax without a rebate for our lowest wage workers and know they can't afford 500 or $600 back to the city in a time when they can't afford to pay rent or put food on the table. This Jumpstart Progressive Payroll Tax bill is the most responsible and most progressive tax proposal we could put in front of us to act in good faith with state and county actors as we advance other progressive strategies. I will remain committed to working on progressive revenue just as I have over the last decade. We will continue to fight for more relief for our lowest wage workers, for small businesses to right side up our upside down tax code. Absolutely. That will continue to happen. And in fact, we're so committed to it. We wrote a predictability clause into the legislation so that if action were to happen at the state or local level, we would also accommodate that in our statute. But we have to be realistic. Those that support is not coming in the immediate future and Jumpstart proposal offers that relief that we need for communities, for small businesses, and for our most vulnerable right now. I want to echo the council president's comments. And while the bill itself was not vetoed. The mayor has not committed to getting the funding for COVID relief out the door, which is critical. The critical effort for us all is to make sure that the mayor allocates the COVID relief dollars as specified in this law after today's vote, because any delay would mean the consequences for our city's health and recovery would be dire. It would be a dereliction of duty not to get this out. And by definition, dereliction of duty. It means a shameful failure to fulfill one's obligation. It is our obligation to provide immediate relief right now to those who are facing COVID crisis. It is our obligation to make sure that immigrants and refugees who've been left out of federal assistance get the support they need. It is our obligation to help small businesses open up so that they can hire more people when they're given the green light under COVID. And it is our obligation to make sure more people can keep a roof over their head and put food on the table so that they can be healthy, sustain themselves and their family, and weather this crisis that has COVID. So this is not a theoretical exercise in crafting progressive policy. We are doing this in the midst of a public health crisis, a pandemic where housing and food insecurity is not just a moral crisis, it is a public health crisis. We're in the midst of a civil rights uprising where black and brown folks are getting hit with higher rates of COVID 19, higher rates of hospitalizations and higher death rates. And coronavirus is leading to more black and brown communities getting laid off, being on unemployment or without the necessary supports that they need from state and federal governments . We're nine and ten black owned businesses who applied for federal support through PPE didn't get it because of the long history of racist lending practices. So we are doing this again as a good partner, stepping stepping up and offering progressive revenue, stepping in where the federal government has not been able to and where the state government has not been able to convene yet. We are doing this to make sure that we've done it in a smart way to offer relief and make sure that these dollars get out immediately. So we look forward to working with you, to working with the mayor's office and our entire community to make sure folks can realize the assistance that has been offered in the COVID relief bill and in the out years in the Jumpstart spending plan that is now detailed in housing. We've continued to hear that there is a greater need for individuals to have access to affordable homeownership opportunities and this and rental assistance. And the proposal in front of us deliberately focuses on undoing historic injustices and building resilience and prosperity for black, indigenous and people of color residents. We're really excited about few elements in this proposal that I want to highlight. I'm really excited about how this will invest in the work of Creative Justice and Africa town. And and it also focuses on really great programs like the ones that Councilmember Wirth lifted up today from community passageways for for efforts like the Youth Achievement Center that will be able to provide multiple multipurpose buildings for wraparound services. This is exactly what Jumpstart envisions when it thinks about coupling housing and social services and community assets together, especially in neighborhoods that have been hardest hit by redlining for the immigrant and refugee population, we know that there's thousands of undocumented families in Seattle who were laid off and intentionally excluded from the CARES Act at the federal level . So we've included 8 million in direct cash assistance to small business support and for assistance for immigrants and refugees throughout Seattle. We've heard from small businesses that they just need flexible dollars, give them the flexibility to hire people back. That changed the structure of their business to create more protection for their employees and their patrons. And we've offered flexible dollars in response to what those small businesses have said, that they need it to the tune of $18 million, and that includes child care support because many small businesses told us they can't open up without additional child support for their kiddos or for their employees. They need childcare assistance and we've planned for the future in this in the small in the in the spend plan. Proposal that is in front of us in just a minute. We've worked with business and labor and community activists and environmental justice folks. In fact, Katie Garrow from the Martin Luther King County Labor Council and Alec from 350 Seattle convened a group of 33 leaders plus them to and representing labor, climate, environmental justice, affordable housing groups. And they put together the proposal that we saw in the amended version which focuses on Green New Deal. Matt Ramsey said this resolution simultaneously addresses climate crisis by seeking the reduction in Seattle's greenhouse gas emissions, the lack of affordable housing, job training, opportunities in the green economy, and addresses the health disparities in Seattle's neighborhoods disproportionately impacted by pollution. This is precisely what the goals of the Green New Deal are. He says he's honored to have worked alongside our office and members of Labor, housing, climate, environmental justice communities with a final and final amended version in front of us. You know, the mayor had a quote in the mayors launch on green and just COVID 19 recovery plan, saying that COVID had laid bare the same inequities that are exacerbated by climate change, which disproportionately impacts communities of color, and that we need to address these by addressing long term wealth creation that is of that advanced the health and well-being of black and brown indigenous communities and not just focus on excluding those folks after the fact, but must pursue solutions that address short term impacts and long term. We agree, and this proposal does just that. It invests in making sure that we are acting on Green New Deal proposals, acting on Green New Deal issues, making sure that we're investing in communities hardest hit in both frontline and fenceline, communities that we've invested in creating affordable housing. Because we know that as more people get pushed out of the city, the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions is car pollution and allowing us to make sure that there's more affordable housing in the city that people live and want to work and stay makes it makes us on the path towards a greener economy. These are the issues we're addressing when we came together and put together the Jumpstart proposal in front of us. This is the moment that we're responding to the city's call for leadership and action. Together, we have come up with the solution. I want to thank again the community, all of my council colleagues, all the activists and all the organizations that have involved with, both pushing for more and coming together with creating these solutions in front of us. We have the blueprint to create a more resilient economy. How is more of our community members feed those who are dealing with food insecurity and make sure that our small businesses have the resilience, resiliency that they need? Finally, I just want to thank my office secretary Aaron House Ed Cuevas and Aretha Basu. In addition to all of the folks on central staff and the communication staff who have been working with us to get the information out community and to incorporate all of your amendments and the final proposal in front of us. We could not do this work without you and the community at large. So thank you very much. Again, colleagues making history, but we've got to get these dollars out the door. That will come next. Thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda, for this final remarks. We're going to go ahead and close out debate on this council bill. I'm going to ask the clerk to call the roll on the passage of the bill as amended. Colleagues, in order to make it easier for our city clerk's office to count your votes in the proper column, there is a request that you vote. Either I for yes or no for no, because a and they sound very, very similar. So if you intend to vote no, make sure it's a no as opposed to nay. And that's something that I'll make sure to occasionally remind us about in order to make sure that we have a clear record for the clerks. So that being said, I'd ask that the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill as amended. Lewis Yes. MORALES Yes. Macheda. Yes. Peterson. Yes. So what? Yes. Straps? Yes. Purple? Yes. SUAREZ. Yes. President Gonzalez. Yes. Nine in favor, nine opposed. Thank you so much, Madam Clerk. I hope that helped. The bill passes as amended and the chair will sign it at the clerk. Please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf. Okay, folks, we're going to go.