AN ORDINANCE relating to land use and zoning; amending Section 23.76.006 of the Seattle Municipal Code to clarify that a land use decision to waive or modify structure width or setbacks for a youth service center, and integrated SEPA decisions, are Type II decisions that may be appealed to the City Hearing Examiner.
Bill passed and chair of the Senate. Please read the report of the full Council agenda. Item one The Report of the Full Council Council Bill 118963. An ordinance relating to land use and zoning amending Section 23.7 6.006 of the Seattle Municipal Code to clarify the land use decision to waive or modify structure, width or setbacks for a youth service center and integrated CPA decisions. Our Type two decisions that may be appealed to the city hearing examiner were referred to full council on May 22nd, 2017. Consumer Brian. Thank you. We had a good discussion today at the council briefing. Amy was going to walk through some of those points, but I'll try to keep it brief. This ordinance clarifies that the city's hearing examiner does have jurisdiction over hearing appeals on waiving development standards for youth service centers. In October of 2014, the council passed ordinance 124610, which allowed youth service centers to be permitted outright and authorized the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections Director to waive certain development standards such as structure, width and setback requirements. This ability to waive development standards was specified as a Type two decision, which typically means is a discretionary decision for the CDC director that is appealable to the hearing city hearing examiner. The master use permit was issued in December of 2016 and it was then appealed by Epic and other members of the community to the hearing examiner, as was commonly understood to be the appeal venue for Type two decisions. In March, the hearing examiner determined that she lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal because ordinance 124610 did not amend a procedural section of the zoning code to specify that waiver decisions for youth service centers are appealable. There is clear legislative history expressing the intent to make this decision appealable, but there was a legislative drafting error which wasn't caught until the hearing examiners consideration. The ordinance is now a corrective ordinance that amends the procedural chapter of the zoning code that lists appealable decisions. To clarify that, the hearing examiner has jurisdiction over youth service center waivers. The correction in the bill is retroactive to April 2015, which was the effective date of the original ordinance. That retroactivity clause does not compel the hearing examiner to take up the appeal, but it is something that a judge could consider in weighing whether to send this back to the hearing examiner. Thank you very much, Councilmember Brian. I'm aware that we will talk about a possible amendment in a moment that anyone will probably have some debate, I'm sure, on this issue. But so why don't we just start with the amendment right now, if you want, unless anyone else want to talk about the base legislation. Okay. Councilmember Beck, so you'd like to propose an amendment? An amendment I would like to propose. And I support what Councilmember O'Brien is doing with the exceptions of line six through eight and lines 11 and 12. And the impact of this would make the ordinance effective to ensure that courts and other decision makers understand that the Council intended and continues to intend that Youth Service Center decisions are a Type two land use decision, subject to an open record appeal to the hearing examiner. But it will not be retroactive. Thank you very much. Second Amendment has been moved and seconded. Any further debate on the retroactivity issue that councilmember spectrum councilmember? Actually, you won't speak a little bit about it. Sure. Sure. I just this is for my colleagues. What's in front of the superior court right now is an appeal from the land use decision to waive or modify the structure with or setbacks. My understanding is that land use decision with regard to moving forward with the map has already vested. So it's limited to waiving or modifying the structure width. But there's a lot of questions about this particular facility, and I would just like to address my colleagues if I could. So years ago, when in my prior life I worked at changing what we know to be the Youth Services Center today, because what all of us know is that it really is a mess. It's not a place where we want children to be. It's not a place where we want, frankly, the judges to have to work. And what we need are spaces in a new building that will connect clients with supportive services. And I want to acknowledge what people were saying in the audience today. We really do need to invest in youth. That is how we're going to get our way out of this and keep our youth out of jail. So what is being proposed to the Community and Family Justice Center to provide more space for confidential meetings, for families, for children, for counselors, for the community? It's really an effort towards big steps, towards prevention. Having library and classrooms and gym. Medical services. Spiritual service. Says Dedicated spaces for prayer, for art, for music, for peacemaking circles, and their space for parents to meet and learn from other parents. Parents for parents providing mentorship and respect for those who struggle. It's just been a customer and show. Now there's going to be eight other opinions here. This is just one opinion of eight. So let's just chill for a second. If I could ask you. I know this is I know, but but we but I, I this is being disruptive and we can hear. So I just ask we were patient to this and you said I just asked you to please, please, please, please come from our back. Thank you. So we also are going to have an opportunity to provide court appointed advocates to meet with children diversion that is going to be a part of community based alternatives. And I'm very much a proponent of the family intervention and restorative services, the first that's an alternative to detention for youth and domestic violence situation. I also want us to be investing our money in school based restorative mediation sessions where youth can work with mediators to help them understand the impact of their actions and space for mentor artists to use their crafts, to work with youth, to give them skills to connect with others in ways that promote their community. Really, our goal is to reduce youth involvement with the juvenile justice systems, because what we know is that the old ways simply do not work. Everyone up here knows that. So we need to acknowledge the need for upstream investments, upstream investments in education and job skills and apprenticeship programs and the best starts for kids. Our family and education levy or housing levy having more orca cards available for young people in need and saying all that we must recognize that there's still violence in homes, but we are spending money on step up programs and there's abandonment of children. There are within our juvenile drug court charges that are dismissed. We do not want to jail kids for status offenses, which someone has already brought up. We also recognize that their guns are in the hands of children. We need to replace that with our aggression, replacement training, our functional family therapy and more. But investing in youth requires space for intervention, space for community outreach, space for these peacemaking and healing circles. And I want to recognize that the mentorship and life skills and family engagement, it takes time and a different approach. Unfortunately, what we're talking about in our Children and Family Justice Center programs are mental health liaisons, public health, including birth control, interagency school and access for girls for powerful voices and personal power. And as Councilmember Herbold mentioned just a moment ago, some try to divide us, but we must find common ground. And that is really my goal. It's the right to change the system and it needs to be changed. If we assume others who disagree with us are evil or ignorant, we promote the divisiveness and the danger that the person that our White House represents. And that's not what we want to do here in Seattle. With regard to the new Children and Family Justice Center, we need to do all of these progressive programs. And we can if we do nothing, if we do nothing, we continue to have a jail. If we build the building and we reduce the risk factors and bolster our youth strategies, we make improvement. So I want to suggest that we don't that we allow the Superior Court to move forward, but we do not try to change this retroactively and that we move this forward because the people have already voted for it and we do everything we can to invest in our youth. So there is a motion on the table to take out to take out that retroactivity clause has been moved in. Second, is there any further comments just on the amendment, on the amendment at this point? Councilmember Herbold. Thank you. I believe the section two, the retroactivity clause, simply states today that the council's intention of 2015, April 1st, 2015, should be considered. It will be up to the Superior Court judge to make a determination of whether or not this ordinance, as passed today, with or without the progressivity or the retroactivity clause, actually makes the ordinance as relates to this particular project ROA retroactive. So I believe that this. Clause simply makes the ordinance consistent with the intent of the council. Back in April 2015 that this should be a decision that is a Type two decision that is appealable. And for that reason, I will not be supporting the amendment or. Any other comments on the amendment, not the base legislation. So I will just close. Customer swap. Thank you, President Harrow. Yes. So Councilmember Bagshaw says that she supports restorative justice. She had a lot of nice owning words. I have just very simple questions. If you stand by those words, then why will you not support the strongest possible clarification to enable EPIC and other community activists to appeal the building of the jail? And furthermore, why did you vote for the jail in the first place in 2014? And do you regret that decision? Councilmember Burgess. Thank you very much. I'm going to share a few thoughts about the amendment and also about the the facility that's being constructed. But I want to begin. I know it's tough to listen to people that you disagree with, but I'd like to have that courtesy, please. Please, that councilmembers for you begin. Now, we showed you how we listened to Mr. Zimmerman call us every name under the sun and we patiently listen. I just ask that you be patient and we will. And I expect you to be a leader, man. I expect you to be a leader. I understand. But just just as a listening exercise. And so just listen and we'll hear from and I know I'm being very polite, but my politeness is getting thin. And I will start I will start having you removed in about 2 minutes. I'm telling you now. I'm telling you now. I'm going to have you removed. I'm giving you for a warning if you keep talking over the speakers. Okay. I'm going to tell you one more time. I'm going to have you removed. If you don't let our speakers, please proceed. Criminal justice reform is urgently needed in our country, and I think we would all agree with that. Even ironically, some of our. View on this don't even some of my. Republican friends. I'm going to ask you to refrain. Please, please go back. Please let the speakers speak. Even some of our Republican friends recognize, as we saw this morning in the Seattle Times opinion piece by John and Mike McKay, both former U.S. attorneys for Western Washington, the McKay brothers wrote of their sharp disagreement with Attorney General Sessions requiring federal prosecutors to seek the harshest and longest mandatory sentences, even in some low level drug cases . In making their argument that Attorney General Sessions is wrong. The case cited King County prosecutor Dan Söderberg and his approach to criminal justice reform. They lauded Prosecutor Söderberg as one of the country's leading reformers, and we know that that's true. He's been a champion of reform, urging police officers across King County to use alternatives to arrest pioneering diversion programs and being very judicious in the filing of criminal charges against juveniles. Our King County Superior Court judges have embraced these reforms wholeheartedly and pioneered some of their own, including adopting restorative justice principles. And what are the results of this reform effort? Here are a few statistics worth noting from the For the ten years ending last year, in 2016, in King County, juvenile court cases referred from police to prosecutors, down 77%. Criminal charges being filed by prosecutors against juveniles. Down 85%. The average number of juveniles held in detention from 200 per day on average to 45 per day on average today, a reduction of over 70%. These reforms and these changes in our approach to juvenile offenders has had a dramatic impact on individual kids and their families as a result of these reforms. King County has the lowest juvenile incarceration rate per capita of any county in the entire United States, the lowest juvenile incarceration rate of any county in the United States. The justice reform efforts that we have underway here in King County are achieving tremendous success, and we should be affirming these dramatic changes and applauding our prosecutors, police judges and court staff. I believe that history will look back and show that King County has led the nation in reforming juvenile justice. The other difficult reality that we have to face here, and this is very hard for us to talk about, is the reality that some juveniles commit very serious crimes murder, rape, robbery , drive by shootings. These individuals, when arrested, deserve to be in a location that is safe, secure and has their long term interest at heart. The second the second point I want to make is that this issue for me involves due process. We passed this ordinance in 2014. The executive then acted and issued a master use permit consistent with the ordinance. An outside party, King County, received that permit and continued their work on the project. The county's contractor has begun site preparation. Architectural designs are being finalized. Reversing ourselves and applying a different standard. Retroactively. Retroactively. In my view, violates the certainty and fundamental fairness third parties should accept from city government. And I will support this amendment. Any other comments on the amendment itself? It's not a closed debate. Simply by saying, I'm not supporting the amendment for the very simple reason that the reason I'm supporting the base legislation is because I expect it to apply retroactively. I mean, that's the whole point of this, in my mind, is to make sure it does apply retroactively. I'll speak more to the base legislation itself, but I don't see a basis at this point in policy or fact for supporting the amendment that has been moved in second. And I think that we are ready to vote on the amendment. All those in favor of the amendment, vote I and raise your hand. All those opposed. Say no and raise your hand. Okay. So the amendment fails. Council member Brian. Uh, we still have the base legislation on the table. Councilman Bryan, did you want to defer to other speakers at this point, or would you like to say a few more words? Okay. Any of my colleagues, like say any comments on the base legislation. And, you know, when I close, I closed it now. So, so so, you know, this is thank you for allowing us to get through this decision. In my mind in 2014. This particular decision is an easy one because when I supported the 2014, I assumed it was appealable to the hearing. Examiner It's as simple as that it was. That was my assumption. Now, whether the technical technical language was in that decision or not or should have been, I didn't read that footnote. I just assumed that it was. And so in my mind very simply that this legislation cleans that up. But probably more importantly and more substantively is what we knew in 2014 and even what we knew as a society in 2012 when the voters decided to rehabilitate this building. What we know about mass incarceration of all human beings in this country and in particular people of color, and we look back and trace it to the war on drugs. We know that our country and this city are in dire straits with what we are doing to our people. We are putting them in prison. And this has become a science and so much data has now come out on what we are doing and we are killing our country, killing our people. So I continue to say transparently and openly that my mind is wide open in terms of what a creative solution would be. And I will take ownership of the fact that between the city and the county, perhaps we have not had the kind of dialog that we could have had. So in my mind, I have no problem openly saying that we need to come up with the most creative solutions possible. This does not denigrate or diminish some of the outstanding work that the county's trying to do. We hear you. We hear you in the in the statistics that Councilmember Burgess cited. We hear those statistics. But in this country, we know we are at war with this evil called mass incarceration. So can we do more? And I think that's what the community communities are asking us. And so I have an ask for the community because very recently I've had many discussions with folks from the county and I've been trying to make sure that we're just not fighting, that we are we are still trying to come up with solutions and that the city you have a very willing, I think, council and executive that are willing to continue to come up with creative solutions in the midst of this legal entanglement. And so I had meetings canceled from some of the opponents to use jail, and I'm trying to make sure that we are still bridging that communication. So I support this legislation, I think Council Member O'Brien and others for bringing it. And I think we're ready for a vote so we don't have an amendment. So we'll do it by roll call. So please call the roll on the. I said I just asked if anyone wanted to speak and everyone said no. And I said I was closing. A. Present and. I wasn't listening. Councilmember Stewart But I made it crystal clear because I didn't want to open it back up. But certainly as the champion you are, you have a right to speak. I think this is an important issue and as an elected official, it is important to speak. That's why I asked three times if people were finished before I tried to close debate. Go ahead. Well, I've already apologized. I know the songs suck. What we're voting on today is an ordinance that will clarify the appeal ability language, but we're not voting on the entire ordinance. I thank everybody who has been part of this yearslong movement against the U.S. jail. We've already seen nationwide the Black Lives Matter movement completely changed the conversation around race and around social, economic and gender justice. Locally. Our movement has successfully fought back against a planned police bunker in the north precinct, a project, by the way, that was supported by a majority of this council. I, of course, as many of you know, voted against the original ordinance authorizing the use jail. So I cannot claim to be an expert on what other council members were thinking when they voted yes. But I am happy to support this amendment to clarify that the Council intended the permits to be appealable to facilitate the movement that we are building. And that is why I will be voting yes on this ordinance. But I want to be clear that I am only voting yes because we are clarifying the language to make it appealable. If we were voting on the ordinance for the UGL again, I would still be voting no because I'm opposed to the UGL . And I also wanted to say that. We've seen today and we've seen every single day that in the context of capitalism, politics, the way politics works is absolutely not neutral. It's a question of who has power. Unless we build strong movements among working people and young people and people of color, big business, the super wealthy will continue to have power. And so because politics is not neutral, what the council wants to spend money on is also not neutral. They've already heard the numbers. The county wants to spend $210 million for a huge jail. The proposed police bungle that our movement successfully put a stop to was going to spend $160 million. And at that time, if you recall, council members were trying to push that through without the infamous Seattle process. And then furthermore, the mayor's office has conducted 601. Sweeps of homeless people in last year alone. I have repeatedly asked how much did this cost? How much of the taxpayer money was spent on the sweeps? They haven't been forthcoming on the answer. But I can tell you something about what it must have cost. It has caused endless hours of staff, hours of the public utilities department, the Department of Transportation, the police department. These are countless hours of workers in the city would be doing something socially beneficial and something that is humane. But instead, they sent day after day to sweep homeless encampments, which is what, inhumane and ineffective. And so this is not a question of a lack of options. It is a question of the majority of the politicians and city hall being skewed towards big business and towards the status quo that is stacked up so heavily against people of color and poor and working class people. As far as King County is concerned, we just heard King County claim that they are losing nearly half a million dollars a month because of the delay. What is the basis of this number? I mean, I haven't seen any proof for why they are losing half a million dollars. I think if you want that point to be made, you should provide evidence of why you're losing that money. And King County is joined by Howard as right. The third, who, let's remember, is the same company that has for years violated the rights of the workers in the Space Needle who are represented by Unite represented by Unite here Local eight. And I want to make note about the amendment that Councilmember Bagshaw just tried to pass with Councilmember Burgess's support. They went out of their way to push an amendment, which, in my view, was gratuitous, to make it more difficult for the no new usual activists to organize against incarcerating young people. I hope community activists are watching which council members are on the side of the movement and which aren't. Councilmember Burgess referred to, quote unquote, our Republican friends. Councilmember Burgess I do not have any Republican politicians as friends, and in reality, many Democratic politicians like yourself have been complicit in mass incarceration from Reagan's so-called war on drugs to Clinton's three strikes law. The school to prison pipeline has been a bipartisan project. I think it is absolutely correct that our movement is not accepting any compromise on this issue. Already, public testimony mentioned the deportations of undocumented youth. Also, remember, Trump's attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has just said that he wants U.S. federal courts to pursue the harshest possible sentences on drug crimes. We know what that means. What that means. It means a reboot on the war on drugs. And it will be a war, as it was before, on black and brown people. So we need to make sure that any victory we win in Seattle, remember, we push for it so that we are and we remember that it will reverberate nationwide and worldwide. And that is why it is important for us to continue to push for this movement against the U.S. and for us to win. And I would also urge all the activists to join us tomorrow at the first council discussion to tax Seattle's rich tomorrow at 8 a.m. here in council chambers. Thank you. Thank you. Please call the roll on the passage of the bill. Herbold, i. Johnson, I. O'Brien, I. Swan, I beg to know. No. No. Burgess. Burgess. No. President Harrow. I have been favored to opposed. The bill passed and sure was. Sign it. Please read the report of the Affordable Housing Neighborhoods and Finance Committee.