AN ORDINANCE relating to employment; establishing a hazard pay requirement for additional compensation for grocery employees working in the unincorporated area of King County from the effective date of this ordinance through the duration of the King County executive's proclamation of emergency for the coronavirus disease 2019.
We are going to give him the time today and the pressing need of or the timeliness, if you will, of item eight. Our agenda. We're going to advance to item eight, ordinance 2021, 93, which would require grocery stores in unincorporated King County to provide hazard pay for their workers. Mary Buchanan from Council Central South will provide a staff report. I'm Ms.. Brogan on the line is yours. Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the record on Mary Burke and on from the council staff and the materials for this item begin on page 59 of your packet. In addition, there are two amendments that are proposed for today's meeting that were sent separately in a supplemental packet yesterday. The proposed ordinance would require hazard pay of $4 per hour for grocery workers who work at grocery business locations that meet three conditions which you can see outlined at the bottom of page 59 of the staff report. Those conditions are first, that the grocery business is located in unincorporated King County. Second, in terms of size, that the grocery business is either over 10,000 square feet, primarily engaged in the retail sale of groceries or over 85,000 square feet with 30% or more of floor area dedicated to the retail sale of groceries. And in terms of employee count, that the grocery business has at least one employee working at the location in unincorporated King County and employs 500 or more employees worldwide, regardless of where those employees are employed. And the ordinance is written that this includes but is not limited to chains, integrated enterprises or franchises. This ordinance is written that it would expire at the termination of the proclamation of emergency for the COVID 19 pandemic that King County executive Dow Constantine issued on March 1st, 2020. Moving forward, I will note that given both the executive's and the governor's emergency proclamations of about a year ago, which the council commemorated yesterday on March 23rd , the governor issued a proclamation, the stay home, stay healthy order that closed nonessential workplaces and banned gatherings. Since that time, although the governor has adjusted restrictions on gatherings and workplaces, essential businesses have remained open. And you can find a list of the essential businesses identified in the Governor's Order in attachment three to the Staff Report. Moving down to the bottom of page 60, hazard pay is something that is defined by the United States Department of Labor as additional pay for performing hazardous duty or work involving physical hardship. National reporting has indicated that many employers provided hazard pay at the start of the pandemic, but that most have since phased out hazard pay. In response, a number of local jurisdictions have implemented hazard pay ordinances during the last several months. And you can see a list on page 61 of some of the West Coast jurisdictions that have done so, including Seattle and Berrien, Washington, as well as Long Beach, Los Angeles and Oakland, California. Each of these ordinances, like the proposed King County Ordinance, have limited durations tied to local emergency orders. The next section describes in more detail the ordinance. I'm going to skip over that for now and move it to page 63 to just talk a little bit about what the ordinance would do and who would be affected by the ordinance. So again, as I noted, the ordinance would apply to employees at specific grocery business locations. This compares to the Seattle and Berrien ordinances in that obviously both of those refer to just grocery businesses within their jurisdictions, whereas King County's would be for the unincorporated area where King County is the local government. I'll also note that while the Seattle ordinance has enforcement and regulation to be managed by its Office of Labor Standards for King County, since there is no such entity, enforcement would be managed by providing that employees or entities representing employees could bring civil action in court if they felt that their right to hazard pay has not been met. In terms of the businesses that could be affected by this ordinance. And I'm now on the bottom of page 64 based on a review of grocery businesses using information from the King County demographer and Department of Assessments on the location building square footage of grocery businesses, as well as research on national employee accounts, including of franchises , alliances and brand names of stores, even where individual locations might be individually operated and owned. Staff analysis identified ten grocery businesses that could potentially be affected in attachment. Or you will find a list of those ten grocery businesses as well as their address, the district they're located in, and the square footage of the building in which they are located. You will also see in that attachment about ten pages of grocery businesses that would meet the terms of the ordinance, except for the fact that they are located in incorporated areas. Those are organized by district just so that council members can see if there is anything that you believe is missing from your district. I'll note in terms of the impact on grocery businesses both nationally and across Washington state. According to the Census Bureau, grocery sales have increased during the pandemic by about 11.3%. And based on earnings reports from some of the larger national chains, grocery business profits have increased as well during this time period. That said, staff do not have an easy way to identify potential profits or sales from individual grocery business locations. That is because the Washington State Department of Revenue does not collect gross business income for specific business locations, but rather for the entirety of a business. And in addition, King County receives sales tax information only for items that are subject to the sales tax, which would obviously excluding food, not include most sales at grocery stores. And in addition, aggregates that sales tax information, so it's not easily disaggregated to individual locations. That said, I will note that of the ten locations staff identified, approximately half are part of larger national chains. Half are part of either local chains or are potentially individually owned and operated businesses that are part of a larger alliance, such as the one that you heard from, from the owners of the Skyway Grocery grocery outlet who spoke to the committee earlier this morning. Next. In terms of staff's analysis, we identified health impacts as and looked at the vaccination status of grocery workers. And I'm now on page 65 of the staff report. There has been research done over the last year, including in the British Medical Journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, that has studied grocery retail workers and found that they are at higher risk of COVID 19, particularly for those who interact with customers on a regular basis. In addition, this research noted that 76% of infected grocery employees had no symptoms, suggesting that those employees could be a source of asymptomatic infection. I will note again that this ordinance requiring hazard pay would expire upon the termination of the governor. This I'm sorry, the executive's emergency order. And I'll also note, and you can see outlined on page 66 that grocery workers would most likely be eligible for vaccination in phase one B tiers two and four, which would begin to cover workers who are either 50 years and older or 50 years and younger who are in occupations considered high risk. Now, it is unclear at this point what the status of grocery workers might be given the governor's announcement of expediting vaccinations for educators yesterday, or the follow up announcement that workers in essential congregate situations such as grocery workers would also be expedited to some level. We're waiting for further guidance from the Department of Health on that. Moving on. On page 67, staff also studied potential community access to food. In other words, if a grocery business that is required to pay hazard pay determines that it must close as a result of that, what would happen to the community? To do this analysis, staff used two metrics used by the United States Department of Agriculture or USDA to study communities with limited food access. And the USDA uses metrics for both low income census tracts that either have a poverty rate equal to or greater than 20%, or a median family income that is 80% or less of the metropolitan areas, median family income, and looks at a metric that they call low access, which are census tracts in which at least 500 people and or 33% of the census tracts populations may have more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store in an urban area or more than ten miles in rural areas . Based on these metrics and using the USDA Food Access Research, Atlas staff identified that of the ten potential grocery business locations identified as being potentially affected by the proposed ordinance. Four of them are located in census tracts that meet the USDA's definition of low income, and you can see those in attachment six of the packet. In terms of the level of access to food, using the low access metric, staff identified that in 2010 there were four of the ten census tracts that would meet that definition, and in 2015, three of them would. Now, because it's sort of impossible to say, well, a store now exists and may affect whether a census tract is determined to be low access or not. What staff also did, and you can see this in attachment five, is mapped each of the potentially affected grocery stores and the surrounding area and listed the distance to comparable grocery stores so that you can see is it a half mile to miles, six miles to the closest grocery store? So that information is all available. I will note that there has been litigation brought to both the Seattle and BURIAN ordinances, and we do have legal counsel on the line who would be prepared to discuss litigation issues in executive session if desired. And I will again just close by noting again that this ordinance would be terminated upon the termination of the Executive's March 1st, 2020 Proclamation of Emergency. I'll note again that there are two amendments happy to pause now and take questions or move into the amendments, if you'd prefer, Mr. Chair. Question. Union Council member LAMBERT Thank you. I have a question I got during testimony the other day that the person testifying from the shore industry said that they had divided outreach help from grocery and that. But 6% of the employees in grocery were susceptible and 20% in the government sector. Can you help me remember the background on that? Because in here it looks like they're more susceptible in the grocery sector than retail or government. And I don't remember that being what we heard in testimony the other day. So can you help me remember that? Thank you, Councilmember. I can't speak to the testimony that you heard the other day. I can simply cite the sources that staff used, which again was a British medical study that looked at particularly a group of grocery retail workers at a store in Massachusetts last year and identified the findings. You can see on page 65 of the staff report as well as information from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the impacts to people of color who are predominantly represented in frontline or essential industries. So I think one of the things the lady said the other day was. But some of those studies had been done in a conglomerate of all retail. And then it was just recently that they had because they were feeling that that data wasn't accurate to their sector to have them do that. The last thing I want to say, it's a little concerning to me on page 67, we can't do anything about it, but it's kind of what I deal with on a regular basis. So we all deal with on a regular basis. Is the USDA characterized as low access tax of those in which at least 500 people in or 33% of the population reside more than one mile from a supermarket, a large grocery in the urban area, it's not in a rural area. It's ten miles, ten miles to get to the grocery store. When you're 90 years old and somebody's taken away your driver's license, that's really quite upsetting. So I wanted to point that definition out because I think that's that's really very sad. So if this were to pass and one of the stores was to close as a result of this ordinance, what would happen to the people, you know, living in or served by hopefully, you know, with the new announcements from the president and the governor in the last 48 hours, this is going to be a short term thing . But what if in the short term timeframe we lose one of these stores and then there isn't a store coming out on the other end? One of the stores in question is across the street from a senior center, a senior living area. And I am very concerned that those seniors would not be able to get to the store. You might remember a number of years ago I tried to see if we could have golf. Carts. To move the people from their house to the grocery stores. And so, you know, we weren't able to do that for a number of reasons because there's a major road going there. But I still think that we need to look at that. But I'm very concerned that the ramifications to the senior community could be devastating. So I just want to put that on the record. Thank you. Councilmember Lambert, in responding to your point about the distance to define food deserts, they point out that I'm representing rural areas myself. If we had a grocery store within every mile of each other with no longer be rural, we'd be dramatically changing the character. People choose to live in rural communities and accept that part of living in rural communities, being rural and having more distance to go for such services. Further questions of mayors on Councilmember Bell Duty. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We had been working in my office on the definition of employees that are covered. I had some question in my mind reading the proposal about whether there might be unintended consequences in terms of including employees that are obviously not intended to be covered. One of the discussions in a different jurisdiction was about whether it covered people working in a home office. You know, in the headquarters office, truck drivers, etc. and it out. That work really didn't lead to an amendment, but I thought there was going to be an amendment, and I see that there is not one. So, Mary, could you just speak a little bit about the definition that's in the proposal as it sits today? Sure. Thank you, Councilmember. So the definition of grocery employee can be found in the ordinance on page 74 of your packet, starting at line 134. And it reads Grocery employee means a person employed by a grocery employer and works at a grocery business. And this gets a little circular, but grocery business is defined further up in the amendment at line 119 as a retail store operation located in unincorporated King County and then has the square footage requirements. So this clearly would not cover someone working at a home office. I think the question of whether it might cover, say, you know, a truck driver who serves that store would be questionable. You know, I guess it would cover them for the point of time that they were working at that grocery location. But this is pretty clearly defined to those specific grocery businesses in unincorporated King County. Certainly, if the council wished to amend this to add more specific, clarifying language about which employees would be affected, that could be done. That's helpful to know. I don't have more questions at this time. Thank you. See. No more questions. Very few brief amendments. Sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So in the separate packet that you were sent yesterday with the amendments, there are two. Amendment one, which is sponsored by Councilmember Balducci, would state that the council intends to review the need for the ordinance three months after it takes effect and may choose to repeal all or part of the ordinance. And then it adds clarifying language that states that if the Council does not act to repeal the ordinance, it would expire upon the termination of the executive's emergency proclamation. So then moving on. Amendment two, which is sponsored by Councilmember, I would exempt from the requirements of this ordinance a grocery business location that meets four criteria. First, that it is located in what is defined as a limited food access community, defined as a low income, historically underserved community that has one or no grocery businesses within its census tract that it is independently owned and operated with that owner having four or less locations operating simultaneously, that it is over two miles from the closest grocery business location that would satisfy the terms of the ordinance in terms of size and employment threshold, and that that location has less than 25 employees regularly working there. So those are the two amendments, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Senior questions on the amendments and having nothing before us now. I would call on the prime sponsor, Councilmember Dombrowski. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate my colleagues patience as we work through a good, long meeting today with a lot of issues. And I appreciate members attention to this legislation and the excellent staff report, which is, I think allowed us to digest the issues and reflect on where we might be on it and if it would be in order. Mr. Chair, I would move adoption with a do pass recommendation of proposed ordinance 2020 1-0093. The motion is before us. Thank you. I'll just speak if I could briefly get to it. Yesterday, the council adopted a proclamation sponsored in part by Councilmember Dunn, but signed by all members and the county executive. Reflecting on the past year in which we've been living with and responding to this pandemic, which has killed 500,000 Americans and tested our systems of government and society. And in that proclamation, we honored and recognized frontline workers, essential workers, including grocery store workers. And I think that that recognition was appropriate. This industry has been essential. And by that I mean our food industry and ensuring that we are able to deliver this essential function of feeding our community and the council's priorities in response to the pandemic. Housing, security and food security have been the top two areas of focus among those that we've identified. We really engaged in it. We cannot deliver this essential food without both the industry, but also workers who fill the stores and who frankly have shown up every day for the last year putting their health and safety at risk. You can't do it all for yourself. You can't do it on the farm. And without them, we couldn't be providing the food security to them, to the community that we need. So why should we pay them more for doing this? And why should government mandated? I think those are two real questions that are called to be addressed by this legislation. First, with respect to why government should do it, I think that we in our country have now, for over a century, a long history of bringing forth action by government to protect and support workers. There is an imbalance of power between the worker and the employer, and the equalizer in that equation can be and has been in our system, the government looking out for the broader good. We regulate workplace safety conditions. We regulate wages and hours with minimum wages and overtime. This is an area that the government engages in and has in our country for a more than a century. And in. Particular, I. Would say that the concept of hazard pay is well recognized and even our federal government. You go to the Department of Commerce and they have adopted regulations in the court of federal regulations to give somebody to give workers, quote, hazard pay when they are undertaking duties that were not originally contemplated when they started the job because of increased exposure to health risks, among other other things. And the code of federal regulations authorizes increased pay for hazardous duty, and that has occurred here in similar effect. We've got workers in the grocery stores carrying out this function who are putting their lives and those of their families that they go home to on the line. And I think in this case, that it is appropriate to recognize that on a limited, short term basis, this legislation would expire concurrently with the ending of the emergency proclamation, or assuming that that comes from Refugees Amendment. If the Council looks at it in 90 days and said we want to make a change or or alter it , that kind of component, but it's limited in nature. It responds to this particular need, and I think it's the right thing to do. A number of other jurisdictions, of course, have done it for Seattle and Palm Beach, California, L.A. County and others. And so we're not we wouldn't be, I would say, going out on a limb here. So for those reasons, Mr. Chair, I hope that the council will take this up with our values here that we have and keep telling and supporting frontline workers and have really supported us. Thank you. Thank you. Colleagues. Amendments. Councilmember Bell Dewji. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Amendment One. Amendment, what is before us? Councilmember Bell DEWJI. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's been very succinctly and correctly briefed. This has been looking at this overall, and I'll speak to the ordinance as a whole on final passage. But I took a good hard look at implementation questions and, you know, making sure that it's clear and and can be implemented because the last thing we would want would be for there to be confusion and have people be disappointed and or not know what we're expecting them to do. So this the purpose of this amendment would be to just give us a moment in time, a fixed moment in time when we could take action if we choose to not take action. The ordinance continues by its term until the terminates by its terms, but especially given the announcements over the last few weeks and how quickly things are changing, we now have at least a credible promise that possibly every adult in America will be vaccinated within 90 days. And and we see that the cases have been coming down and the hospitalizations have been going down. Of course, all of this could change, right? Like everything changes very quickly in this pandemic. So I would not want to rely on that and say changes the expiration date. But I think we should take a good look and a reasonable but short period of time. And where are we at now as is necessary to continue? And that's the idea behind the amendment. Thank you for considering it, colleagues. The discussion on Amendment One. I like it. It's well thought out. Thank you for all those and see no further discussing all this in favor of please say I. Am. Opposed. Nay, the ayes have it. Amendment one is adopted. Council members are alive. I move amendment to Mr. Chair. Amendment two is before us council members. Hello. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Councilmember Dombrowski, for bringing this forward. Thank you to the unions who have been supporting this. I'm very much in support of hazard pay and will be voting yes on this this ordinance. I've proposed a very limited exemption that would exempt grocery stores located in very limited food access communities that are low income, historically underserved communities, and where the grocery stores are independently owned . They're not part of this, these big national chains that have been making record profits because of the pandemic. I think that the fact that, as Mary mentioned, it's more difficult to understand the financials of each specific store and the fact that if anything were to happen to a grocery outlet, for example, we would further create a food desert. If you looked at the map that Mary provided, there aren't any other grocery stores in Skyway. So when we're dealing with a community that 70% people of color that has the highest proportion of African-Americans in the state of Washington, that many people don't have a car to get around and drive to the next closest grocery store , which is not in Skyway. I just want to be very careful about this very limited situation. Otherwise, I'm very much in favor of this ordinance and believe that we need to pay our workers who are been enduring all kinds of risk, putting their bodies on the line to feed our communities. Thank you. Further discussion. Mr. Dombrowski, I want to thank councilmembers, our ally for working collaboratively on this. And it was an issue that we identified when looking at the legislation. And of course, the history of that grocery outlet is that it took a lot of work to get it there. The one in Skyway, it was empty. The community was without a grocery store for a long time because the big folks, frankly, wouldn't come in because the margins weren't there, the profitability wasn't there. And so I think this amendment under the precautionary principle is well taken. And and we'll be supporting it because we don't want to do harm. And so I think it's very narrowly tailored and well done. Mr. Chair. The Chair. Councilmember Lambert, I. Have a technical question and then I have a comment. Could you tell me online 45 with the is? I've never seen one like that. Usually when you have hammered out with the rest of the line is there. So what is that on line 45? Thank you, Councilmember. What this represents, it's just the way that amendments are written because there are new sections being inserted. This is just instruction to the code revise or that when they add those new definitions in. We have to remember that there are two things going in in between two other things. And so we have to keep adding new letters and so that it's just instruction to the code. Revise here. Okay. I usually see the rest of the statement, but so that yeah. That, that is not there because it's not changing. So this is just telling the code revise or, you know, put this in here and then what had been l is now going to become M okay. So I agree with the statement of the previous speakers, the idea that we don't want to be creating food deserts and I too have a similar situation in my district where the access issue for transportation is very serious and it pertains to seniors. And also we have a lot of people of color in the area that are low income also. So and we don't have good transportation for the bus in that area. So there are a lot of issues where I want to make sure we aren't creating a food desert. So I was hoping that this amendment would say that all low access areas in the county would be treated equally. So I will be voting and supporting this, but I will hope to have an amendment for council that will say that all low accesses can be treated equally. So. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Ms.. Bergeron. Cannot I ask? What what locations are identified in the staff report? We might think this amendment identifies. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes. So the the belief is and I'm just going to scroll to the appropriate attachment here. The belief is, after much quality time spent on the USDA's Food Access Research Atlas, that this amendment could potentially apply to two of the locations identified in Attachment four. One would be the grocery outlet and skyway that meets all of the, you know, owner operated size, income and distance criteria. The other potential, although I do not know for sure, is the Red Apple Dominick's, which is located in District eight that appears to meet the low income, independently owned and operated and the distance criteria. I am not certain about the employee account and I actually have to confess I am not certain how many outlets that owner of that particular Red Apple owns. So that one is potentially affected by this amendment? Not 100% clear. So I hope that's helpful. Thank you. Yes. Further discussion of amendment to. Mr. WELLS. Mr.. QUESTION Thank you, Mr. Chair, of Council Members online and anybody else. But one concern I have here is that you have individuals who are working in grocery stores, are front line employees, putting their health and safety at risk. And at one store they would be able to get this hazard pay and then another store they will not be able to. And I'm just wondering if you have a response to that, to provide some comfort to me about it. I appreciate that. Yeah. Thank you. Councilmember Caldwell's. So. This grocery outlet is not owned by the national grocery outlet. It's independently owned. The national grocery outlet is just their wholesale seller. So financially they are basically independent from the national one. And so I would look at it in terms of which ones are owned by this specific grocery outlet rather than the national grocery outlet. And these owners own just the Skyway one and a rent and one. And of course the rent and one wouldn't be impacted by our King County legislation, since it's a different city. And I. Mr. Chairman, go on, please. Please. And I understand that. And I think that's a valid point. But my concern overall, again, is the individual workers at the stores who have their own one store, they get that hazard pay. The other store they do not. And I think that's the question we can't answer here. You mean that other grocery outlets owned by the national chain. Well, or even our stores in their area might not be skyway, but it might be in other areas where there is the store that would be required to provide that hazard pay, and there might be a nearby store that would not have to provide that transit plan. Gotcha. Yeah, I would. My position would be that each of these stores has a different circumstances and as highlighted by the very limited requirements of this amendment. And I can speak more broadly to the legislation in that regard. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If I might, as a member. TOMASKY Thank you, Councilmember Cornwell's appreciate the inquiry. I guess I'm I think it's a good question slash point. The way I think of it is assuming that that that you believe there is value in the hazard pay concept for frontline workers. It's we don't operate in a vacuum. Right. That there are these other competing public interest issues, public policy issues that we need to account for when adopting that policy for workers. And one is in an area where there may be low margin that could perhaps tip the financial picture of the operator to the red instead of the black. The consequences of that are pretty significant in the communities identified by Council Members Alkalis amendment and that is you've reverted to Democrats creating a food desert in the Skyway West to one that isn't. We don't know the finances, but the risk of the food desert is real because that's what it was until grocery outlet came and council members. All my predecessor and his office worked very hard around zoning issues and development issues of the county to get that store in there to be viable. So I think of it as a as a a recognition that we're not operating in a vacuum, there aren't consequences, and that we want to mitigate against the risk of losing that fundamental service to the community of delivering food through this network. I don't know if that's helpful. Thank you, Councilmember de Basket. For the discussion on amendment to. See none of those in favor of amendment to please signify by saying hi. Those opposed? Nay, the ayes have it. Amendment two is adopted. Further discussion. On the on the legislation as amended. I will. I'm on my behalf. But I will say that I'm at this time of unprecedented profits for some national grocery chains to then discontinue making hazard pay for their employees, who we have seen documentation in the staff report and in pursuing since this legislation was introduced and over the last year of the pandemic, are at higher risk of contracting COVID 19. We need to step up in and encourage this type of support for frontline workers. We know that grocery workers are more at risk. And to use this type of legislation as a wedge in arguing that that's why they are closing stores in some hard hit neighborhoods. I think it is abhorrent on behalf of large corporations experiencing great profits during the pandemic. So very disappointed in how some of those actors have behaved. I think encouraging and supporting frontline workers in this legislation has great value. I would ask, and I think it would be the sponsor if you'd be willing to respond to a question about intent in that it be. Large, important, large stores and associations included, not individual ownership. Ms.. Brigadoon referenced in her staff report branding. And I think that might also apply depending on how ownership is structured. With some ideas and thrift ways in particular. Is it the intent to. Only apply to large own stores and not ones that might brand with other stores. Yes, Mr. Chair, it's my understanding and I'm happy to be corrected by Mary or legal counsel, but that the structure of the legislation applies to those larger entities and that a mere affiliation through a brand. This, for example, the main grocery outlet brand, if it's independently owned, it would it would still have to meet the criteria of the multiple stores and employees and square footage before the ordinance applied. Thank you. This is Mary. I'll just jump in to note that in the legislation itself, on page 76, in your packet, starting at line 172, there is a section that describes how business entities that would otherwise be treated separately are, for the purposes of this ordinance, considered as either an integrated, an enterprise or, you know, categorized as part of their larger body. And factors that are considered in the ordinance the way it's drafted, which again, could be amended if this does not meet the intent of the council members, our degree of interrelation between the operations of multiple entities, the degree to which the entity share common management, centralized control of labor relations, degree of common ownership or financial control over the entities, and use of a common brand, trade, business or operating name. So, you know, it's I think it's that final point that might get to some of the thrift ways. As you know, some of the stores that are independently owned and operated but operate as part of a larger alliance or as grocery outlet does as a consignment to that larger entity. So again, this certainly could be amended. This was patterned after the legislation that was developed in Seattle and the way that they made their definition. But but those those are sort of the clarifying points that the ordinance makes about how do you determine if a grocery business is part of this ordinance or not part of it? Thank you, Councilmember Lambert. Thank you. I might add a legal question. There's some that's turning around. We have legal counsel. So my legal question is this. If when this passes, it is prospectively not retrospective. Is that correct? Councilmember. I know we have Steven Tapley from the prosecuting attorney's office here. I will just note that this is prospective only. Okay, great. And I thought one of our in-house attorney, not not in Pasadena, but one of our members who. I'm covering more we're covering the intel is not. Giving legal advice. No, no. The intel the makers that are being prospective only effective upon effectiveness of the ordinance. But I just want to make sure that, you know, I it does concern me that we're telling a business what they will pay because it could become a slippery slope. But hopefully with the new information that we have out and the parameters were put in because of amendment number one, that in 90 days is will be gone and that this is the would that be able to make business decisions? Thank you, Mr. Chairman, to check that legality. Thank you, Councilmember Balducci. Mr. Chair, just a few comments on final passage. One of the things that we have all learned through this incredible last year that we've all lived through is, I think, and a renewed and deeper appreciation for the people and the things that make our everyday life possible. And I'm very grateful that I that I now carry around with me, as I think many people do, this idea that grocery workers are essential workers. But that was not something we used to say before a year ago. And and we learned it really clearly, because at first we were all so afraid. We didn't know if we were going to be able to buy food. We didn't know how things were going to stay open. And throughout all that time, all the uncertainty, not knowing how bad things were going to get and then how bad things actually did get over the last year at times. Every single time that any of us had to go and buy food for our families, there were grocery workers on the other end of those trips to help us get the groceries and feed our families so that we were able to say stay safe and healthy. And we've talked a lot in government and news and public and private about about that gratitude that that new gratitude that we feel towards essential workers like grocery workers. But truthfully, it doesn't mean a whole lot unless you honor people's work with appropriate compensation. That is when I mean, literally putting our money where our mouth is. And so that's why I appreciate this proposal that's been brought forward. That's why I support it. I, I want to answer just a couple of questions. I think a lot of questions have been answered, but that I have heard that have not been answered yet. So one of the questions I've heard about this is what if I'm a grocery operator who runs my business very safely? I've done everything I need to do with regard to each fact and improvements and and personal protective gear and making sure customers are wearing masks, etc., etc.. You know, why should I have to pay hazard pay when my workplace isn't hazardous? Because I've done everything I should. I think this is just a definitional question. Hazard pay doesn't mean that the employer isn't doing everything they ought to do. In fact, I hope they all are, and I think that many of them are. Hazard pay means that just by virtue of going out of your house and going to work every day and being around other people, regardless of what kind of protocols you put in place, there's a risk that somebody is taking on who's out in public working all the time, that those of us who get to work from home are not taking on. I've been asked why these employees and not other types of employees? Why not county employees? Why aren't we giving more hazard pay? Why aren't we do give Caterpillar some of our employees, especially the ones that are on the front line of actually responding to COVID patients. And to me, the answer to that is that grocery workers, among all of the workers who are out there doing what they need to do every day are some of the lowest paid just by virtue of the occupation and the industry. And so to provide a modest and temporary increase to their pay in recognition of the risk that the grocery workers have taken on for all of us, seems reasonable and fair. I do believe that it can be done without putting businesses out of business. If I thought a whole bunch of businesses weren't going to be able to afford this, I wouldn't support it, but I do support it. So I'm happy to vote yes. And I do want to warn that there may be one more amendment at full council, and that's because there's some contingencies around what the implementation date is. Kind of getting back to Councilmember Lambert's question, just by virtue of how we pass ordinances and how they take effect, it could happen on a certain date or it could happen on a contingent date, depending on whether the executive signs or doesn't sign or whatever happens. Right. So I may bring an amendment that says it will take effect on this day. So we will set a day that is, you know, at an appropriately short period of time, just like an ordinance would normally take effect on one of our two paths. But that way, everyone who's charged with implementing it will have a very clear sense on this day it starts. But I, I also want to thank Councilmember Dombrowski and the advocates for bringing this up, because I think it's important it's an important statement and important support that we should provide to important people in our community. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You're welcome for the debate. Scene nine Councilmember Best Q2 clothes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the great debate today on the merits and opportunity to reflect with my colleagues about where we are and on this particular legislation. It is broad legislation for the County Council. This is a big deal and I think for me anyway, sometimes I think if we don't reflect and pause and think and look at things from different angles, maybe we shouldn't be in this business. But I think we all do that. And I, after introducing it, was, you know, looking at the debate and really reflecting, is this the right thing? And and one of my advisers, as you all know, I think, is my dad. And he happens to be the oldest former grocery store worker I know. As a teenager, he worked for Mr. Kreider, Kroger's store in Dallas, Oregon, delivering groceries and stocking the shelves. In fact, his dad, my granddad, said, I don't care if Mr. Crowder tells you to stock the shelves with the cans upside down and backwards, do it just as happily as if he told you to put them on the shelf, right side, up and forwards. In other words, he was the boss. But that was tough work and essential work. And I said, So, Dad, is this the right thing to do, paying four bucks an hour more? And he didn't hesitate. He said, of course it is wearing their bust in their tails and working. Hard. And dealing with the public. And and that was reassuring to me and gave me the comfort to know at least that that little check that I feel we are doing the right thing here today in courage member support. Thank you for the opportunity to bring this forward today, Mr. Chair, on a very packed agenda that can help. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Belushi. Councilmember Dan Belsky. Councilmember Dunn. No. Council member Coles I Council member Lambert now council member of the group I like. Council member by night. The high. High Council members. I might. Mr. Chair. Hi. Mr. Chairman. About a seven I's council members, Dunn and Lambert vote no. Thank you. By your vote, we've given it to pass recommendation to 2020 193 as amended, and we will expedite that to full council this coming Tuesday. I'm pleased we are going on the 4 hours of Oak Hill meeting and I want to apologize and express appreciation to Councilmember Up the Grove, whose district executive committee his staff has been delayed from his old low tape 1:00 search. We also have on today's agenda legislation addressing fireworks in unincorporated King County. You've heard it our last meeting from residents of unincorporated King County who are dramatically affected by this legislation.