AN ORDINANCE relating to the Office of the Hearing Examiner; temporarily suspending deadlines imposed by the Seattle Municipal Code for the duties of the Hearing Examiner; temporarily superseding several sections of the Seattle Municipal Code that impose deadlines on the actions of the Hearing Examiner; and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.
119770 relating to the Office of the Hearing Examiner temporarily suspending deadlines imposed by the Seattle Municipal Code for the duties of the hearing examiner temporally standing several sections of the state on a separate but imposed deadlines on the actions of the hearing examiner and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts. Thank you. I will pass Council Bill 119770. Is there a second? Thank you. And thank you. It's been moved and seconded to pass the bill. And as sponsor of the bill, I'll go ahead and address the bill first and then we can I will ask for comments. So as I mentioned this morning during council briefing, the hearing examiner has requested that the council consider passage of Council Bill 119770. This legislation will temporarily suspend deadlines required in the municipal code for the Office of the Hearing Examiner. Due to the COVID 19 emergency, in response to the governors and mayors orders during the Civil Emergency Hearing, Examiner Ryan Mansell published important emergency rules to provide guidance on the operating rules for the Office of a Hearing Examiner during the COVID 19 emergency. Those rules were to be in effect for 60 days and include closure of his office to the public, allowing remote hearings, allowing electronic filing of documents, suspending in-person payment of fees, and allowed people to pay their fees later if the office closure impeded, if the office closure prevented payment from being made timely. These are all important actions to comply with public health guidelines and to help prevent the further spread of the coronavirus to the public and to the hearing examiner staff. Of course, the Office of the Hearing Examiner is something that is created by statute, is an independent office, and they require this bill in order to have the flexibility needed to continue to comply with these public health orders. So Council Bill 119770 will temporarily suspend statutory deadlines. The suspension will automatically end with the termination of the civil emergency. It's important for us for me to note that this bill does not suspend deadlines applicable to city departments, appellants or other participants in cases that come before the hearing. Examiner And this bill only provides the hearing examiner relief from the stringent deadlines that would make it difficult for the Office of Hearing Examiner to comply with the governor's stay home state health order. So for those of you who took a look at Amy Goard, city council central staffer Amy Gore's memo, you will note that she made sure to highlight that there is that particular issue. If we as a council want to take up the issue at a future date to consider suspending deadlines for city departments or for the other litany of folks that I just mentioned. We could do that, but council central staff has identified that it would be appropriate to consider that that temporary policy relief or shift in the separate and newly introduced bill. So I will have conversations with the hearing examiner to see if that is something that makes sense from a policy perspective. And also happy to hear from any of you all at a future date as to whether or not that is a policy shift that would be of interest. So that is the essence of this bill and I'm happy to entertain any comments. Are there any comments on the bill? Hey. Hearing and seeing none. I will ask the clerk to please call the role on the passage of the bill. Councilmember Morales. I. Councilmember Mesquita I council member Peterson. I help the members a lot. I. Councilmember Strauss. I. Councilmember Herbold. I. Councilmember Suarez, I. Councilmember Lewis. I. President Gonzales. I. Nine in favor. Nine oppose the bill so those in the chair will sign it. Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf? We will now move to other business. I have one item of other business, but before I go through that, is there any other further business to come before the council from any of my