AN ORDINANCE relating to the establishment of an annual gathering celebrating the life and legacy of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; and adding a new chapter to K.C.C. Title 2.
To speak to our regular calendar, regular order. Thank you very much for your presentation. We'll turn to item 13 today, which is legislation which would, I guess, formalize a long standing celebration practice here that we have at the county in partnership with the public to honor Martin Luther King Jr. Our namesake, Andrew Kim is going to present on it. This is offered by Councilmember Gossett and myself. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Andrew Kilmer, Council Central Staff. The staff report for this item begins on page 475 of your agenda. Get the ordinance before you. As you mentioned, Mr. Chair, would establish an annual gathering celebrating the life and legacy of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Since the adoption of Motion 6461 in 1986 to change the namesake of the county to Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The county. And celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. King on an annual basis. And since 2004, the celebration has traditionally been have taken place at large venues. The proposed ordinance before you today would formalize this annual gathering. Since 2004, the annual gatherings have been coordinated by the Department of Executive Services with assistance from an inner branch team composed of representatives from county branches, departments, agencies and offices. However, in 2017, the Office of SGA, the Equity and Social Justice, assumed the coordination of the gathering due to some personnel changes. For 2018, the Executive modify the format of the public gathering to a conversation café, which explored issues of race, equity and justice in small groups of figures that was open to county employees. The proposed ordinance would require the Office of SGA in collaboration with an inner branch team to plan and convene the annual gathering. It would also require the gathering to be held in the second week of January, be open to all county employees and the public, and be held in a county venue that would accommodate all the attendees , the USDA and in collaboration with the inner branch team with widely publicized the gathering. And lastly, the proposed ordinance would authorize the use of county's general fund to fund the annual gathering. The Office of ESG Staff stated that the cost of the gathering would, as required by the proposed ordinance, would cost approximately $20,000 each year. And the Office of ESG Staff affirmed that they would be able to take up the work as required by the proposed ordinance and state that they have already begun planning for the 2019 Annual Gathering in collaboration with some representatives from the different branches, departments and offices. Lastly, Mr. Chair, staff has prepared Amendment One, which has been distributed to members to modify the statement of facts, to clarify the history of the gathering, and require the Office of ESG to invite, rather than convene representatives from the various offices and require the representatives to. Receive ideas and feedback from the community on the planning of the annual gathering. That concludes my remarks, Mr. Chair. We also have in the audience Matthias Whalen, director of the Office of ESG Advisor. And Andrew, thank you for your work on this legislation. Turn it over before I do. Councilmember Garcia just one. But I just I just want to say this historically has been one of my favorite things to do here at the county. The celebration has been inspiring and uplifting historically with musical presentations and awards to kids from around the county for essays and really also educational to remind us and to educate us, or at least me, about the work of Dr. King and to keep current and keep expanding my mind anyway, on issues related to civil rights, equity and social justice work. And this process that we are proposing be established would be to ensure that a broad representation of county employees continue to be involved in the planning and execution of the event. That it reflects kind of a broad perspective, that it involves the community, not that we are cementing any one particular type of celebration, but that we are cementing a process to empower folks to ensure that we get a celebration, an event that is meaningful and and helpful to help us achieve our goals and missions here. At least that's my in my interest on working on this. And then if I could just work with those, I'd like to offer Councilmember Garza an opportunity as a as a sponsor. And then to you. And I thank you, Michel. I wanted first to thank you as the co-chair, for your articulation of the reasons for this ordinance. I would only add that last year, the perception and I want to use the word perception because I don't know what the objective facts were. Many out there on the county staff there on the MLK committee and then other mostly African-American staff from all around the county. So it appears to us that they're watering down and making the celebration only available to employees of King County. We liked it when all the middle schools in Seattle were involved, were and had kids writing essays. We liked it when at least they and other people in the community were invited to the event, and we had it at venues that were larger than what we would need if we'd only laminate things there. So and then people brought up other issues relative to the celebration. So we thought that it would be wise and helpful that we could go back and talk to the staff here in the broader community and tell them that we've kind of institutionalize having this event and keeping it as broad as we can. And I thought that was good. But I also wanted to say that I thought that the criticisms that the executive staff that have overseen this effort had received were also valid, that it seems kind of state it needs to be more creative in terms of speakers and cultural events and other kinds of speakers. We need to be more creative than just sending a letter to middle schools asking how to sponsor our contacts. We need some staff or volunteers that really work the issue of having the community involved in our countywide celebration of our Namesake's birthday because of the historical importance, but the potential political importance of having Martin Luther King and his life and his teachings and his example available to us and carrying on and developing public policy in implementing those policies and bringing all people together and and what he called the beloved community. So that is the rationale and reason and B, behind. Then an ordinance form that we celebrate in this manner. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity. Thank you. Councilmember Gossett, Consumer Council. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I strongly support this proposed ordinance and would like my I would like to add my name as the sponsor. And I have a question for Andrew. It might be better from me to I'm not sure. The next item on our agenda is to create the legislative branch, equity and Social Justice team, and would that automatically then be part of the Inter Branch ESG team? I'm not sure how that little word. To. You would, and automatically the members of the ESG team wouldn't automatically be part of the coordination of the MLK annual gathering. It would be some of the members can may represent the legislative branch to be part of that team, but there's no requirement in the proposed ordinance that they would be. Would that be something we could amend this to do? I would. I mean, I don't know how this all works. Maybe, Mathias, you could give some response to that. As it comes up. You are definitely open to either amending this legislation to include the ESG legislative team members or the motion that would be before you. The next item to have those members be part of the MLK Gathering Celebration Coordinating Committee. Okay, terrific. Thank you, Andrew. Hi. Good morning. In terms of the the celebration that we're doing right now for 29. Tea Partiers, would you like to give us your name? Yes. All right. Dr. Matthias, balance around the director of the Office of Equity and Social Justice. Right. So, I mean, the process that we have done is historically there has been a MLK committee that has put the celebrations together. So we went back and asked those participants of whether they wanted to continue to be part of the committee. Al Sanders from Council, for example, continues to be in that committee and a number of other from the executive branch and some of the separate like that. Agencies too are part of that. And in addition, in the spring, as I was creating the committee, I made a call into the Inter Branch team for other representatives. So we have about half of the current participants are from the previous committee and we have some new participation as well. May I continue? Sure. I think committees. So is the inner branch team informal in terms of its composition and or is it not formal? It's it's by by or the the the 2010 ordinance that we consulted about this ordinance really lays out that we should have an entire branch team that should be appointed by or represented by directors or appointees. So all department heads and agency heads appoint people to that team. Sometimes we have chiefs of staff, sometimes we have background, social justice managers. And that position for council, the regular representation is from Carmel Ennis, from central staff, and then we have from Council of regards the office, we have regular participation but also the the there's a special representative and then others can attend as well. And Carmella's an official representative. Yes. In the past it's also been Michael Reid was has been a part of it and some other central staff. I should I mean, I would think it's not Carmella who's official, but her position would hold that. Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure what what what was forwarded to me from counsel was that it was Kamala MLA who was going to be there or her position. Yes, exactly. Who's the represent. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Lambert. And then we'll take this item up. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, first of all, I think that the idea of being inclusive is really important and maybe a county wide email going out to every employee saying, are you interested? Because we don't always know people's interests or their backgrounds or what. And when I first came here, I, I tried to get on the committee and the first year I didn't get accepted. In the second year, I thought waiting, I guess accepted last year to be on it. So maybe if they knew I wrote a book about Martin Luther King, they would, you know, think that that might be a good thing for me to be on the committee. So I wrote that I'd written a book and I didn't get on the committee. And the next year I had a copy of the cover of the book to say it actually exists and I just don't get on the committee. So I think for some. People. Maybe there was a feeling that they that only certain people could be on the committee. And so it didn't feel inclusive to me when I first got here. So anyway, I think having because we don't know what people's backgrounds are, we don't know that they were friends with Martin Luther King or they're his children, his grandchildren, or they lived next door, you know, whatever. We have no idea. And so we put it out to every Kent County employee and let them right into you. You might find a broader base of people who would really like to be involved. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Lambert I Vice-Chair is helping me run the committee here. Councilmember Gossett Can we ask him to put it before us as the lead sponsor and then Councilmember Cole's do you want to offer the amendment there? Okay. Councilmember Garcia, would you like to offer this legislation, this ordinance? Thank you, Mr. Chair. At this time, I accept their privilege of putting forth and recommending to the members of the committee of the hall that we adopt and move to the County Council as a whole. Proposed Ordinance 2018 0381 related to establishing an annual gathering celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Thank you, Councilmember Gossett. Councilmember Coles. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move adoption of amendment number one. All right, thank you. And Amendment One is the refinements articulated by Andrew earlier with respect to the findings of fact and the operative section language about inviting all in favor of Amendment one, say i ii any opposed and one carries no turning to comments on final passage and councilmember calls as initiate a cosigner sheet here. If other members would like to sign on, it's available. Just let us know. Councilmember Coles. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just I'm very supportive of this and of course I'm voting for it. But I would like to talk with Andrew and or materials about whether we could come up with an amendment, if appropriate, is addressed. Addressing what I brought up already about council, he has changed to a legislative body ESG team that we could prepare that for the full council if we go ahead. Okay. Thank you. And Councilmember Gossett and. I thank the very appropriate materials, because I think that our ESG team is different than the Martin Luther King Committee that put on this event of the separate entity. Yeah. So I think that's very wise that we do the research and figure out how they either state separate and how they work or if it's necessary or helpful there. I wanted to ask Jay members also on the other committee that that ought to be good. Thank you. Mr.. Thank you. All right. Anything else? Want to thank Councilmember Coles and Councilman Baldacci for signing on as co-sponsors and markup when you call the roll on this item as amended. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Bell. Duchin. Councilmember Dunn. Councilmember Carson. Hi. Councilmember Colwell. Councilmember Lambert. Councilmember McDermott. All right. Council member of the Grove. Councilmember one right there. Mr. Chair. Right, Mr. Chair, the vote is nine eyes, no no's. All right. We've given a do pass recommendation of that. Given that the legislation calls for that second week of January, why don't we expedite it? Since there may be an amendment, we won't put it on consent, but let's bring it up as soon as we can. Diaz, thank you for being here, for your work on this important celebration. And all the other work you're doing in this office is great. Thank you. And I think the upcoming celebration will not disappoint. So thank you. Very good. Thank you. We have some singing. We have some spoken word. All right. Yeah. All right. And, like some music as well. Yeah. Sounds good. Okay. Was anybody there for the pickle speech? Does anyone remember the pickle speech? Speaking of spoken word, very good. Recommend you go back on KQED and watch it. Excellent Speaker. All right. Our final item today is propose motion 2018 0282 offered by Council Chair McDermott, Councilmember Garcia and Councilmember Cole Wells.