AN ORDINANCE relating to strengthening The City of Seattle’s policies for conducting City business with partners that are committed to fair business practices; adding Chapter 20.46 to the Seattle Municipal Code; amending the revised City of Seattle Investment Policies adopted by Resolution 31525; and requesting the Mayor and Director of Finance and Administrative Services to take certain actions, including not renewing the Contract for Bank Depository Services with Wells Fargo Bank beyond the initial term and refraining from making new investments in Wells Fargo securities for a period of three years.
Three Part of the Affordable Housing. Neighborhoods and Finance Committee agenda item one Constable 118905 relating to strengthening the city of sales policies for conducting business with partners that are committed to fair business practices. The Committee recommends the bill pass and agenda item two Quick File 314 368 Documents relating to Wells Fargo Bank Social Responsibility and Fair Business Practices. The committee recommends the file be placed on file. Thank you very much, Councilmember Burgess. Thank you. This legislation relates to social responsibility and fair business practices. It builds on several years of work by the Council and the mayor to strengthen our contracting procedures. There are two major sections to this legislation one dealing with ethical business practices and the other dealing with environmental protections, specifically the Dakota Access pipeline. Councilmember Juarez will address the environmental issues and other things in her comments. This bill that we have before US Council Bill 118905 builds on Councilmember Silence Original proposal, but it differs in several ways. First, it broadens the scope of the social responsibility and fair business practices to cover all city contracts, not just banking contracts. It broadens the debarment standards for companies that may be considering bidding on city contracts. It expresses the council's intent to the mayor and the director of our finance and administrative services that they give immediate notice to Wells Fargo of the city's intention not to renew the existing banking service contract and to prohibit investments in Wells Fargo securities for a period of up to three years. Finally, it includes specific findings of fact regarding unethical practices that Wells Fargo has engaged in as established by governmental entities. I think this last fall we were all aware of the news accounts about Wells Fargo establishing false credit card and banking accounts. As a result of that. In September, Wells Fargo admitted these violations with the federal comptroller of the Currency and paid a $35 million fine. They acknowledged these unethical practices with the city and county of Los Angeles and paid a $50 million fine. They acknowledged these unfair business practices with the Federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and paid a $100 million fine. However, as we were working on this ordinance, we also discovered in 2016, in the month of September, Wells Fargo also paid a $20 million fine to the Federal Comptroller of the Currency for failing to honor veteran mortgage interest cap rates. Veterans receive a special benefit in mortgage interest caps, and Wells Fargo was exceeding this cap. In April of 2016 entered into an agreement with the Department of Justice to pay $1.2 billion in fines for improperly claiming FHA mortgage insurance benefits. A total of $1.4 billion in 2016 because of inappropriate business practices. Those items that I just referred to are part of the Clarke file, which becomes part of our permanent record, which are filed to support the findings and the conclusions of this ordinance. This was considered in committee last week and unanimously recommended for adoption by the full council. I understand that council members Gonzales and Herbold have additional amendments today. I support those amendments, and with their adoption, I then recommend the passage of this legislation. Thank you, Will. Will the council members talk about the substantive bill? We may have some comments. We have some amendments we have to work through as well. So, Councilman Morris, you have the floor. Thank you, President. Thank you all for being here today. I first want to thank all my native brothers and sisters who are here. There's a lot of friends and sisters and brothers and aunties in the audience, as well as some of my former colleagues from my legal service days. I also want to thank Rachel from Mocha Shoot to Amish. We're all very honored to receive your gift. I know that when you give cedar and when you give water and when you give a right from a sacred river, what that means to even to our people of the Blackfeet nation. I also want to thank Matt and Pamela and Molly and the others. Very honored that you gave us that song. Thank you very much. I'm hoping that my colleagues understand what that means. It is a very big deal in Indian Country. With that, I have some comments to make about Council Bill 118905. Fair business practice ordinance in particular. There's one section A page four, line 1 to 8 that I want to read. And I don't want to talk about what this bill means, not just legally, not just financially, but what it means morally, the fair and responsible business practices just to avoid conducting city business with partners that engage in criminal or systematic, deceptive, fraudulent or abusive business practices. This counsel bill strengthens and expands not only our current socially responsible banking law that Cmu's Bill Code 2046, but in addition, our investment policies, namely Section four regarding how we invest our money. Today we were both strengthened and expand upon our current laws. We will reach beyond just banking partnerships and include all city contracts. Council Bill 118905 will become proactive in the RFP process by advising all potential vendors business partners. What we require in socially responsible commercial relationships is what we will demand. This Council bill acts as a deterrent to potential bad actors and is somewhat punitive in nature by by providing concrete remedies for addressing past and current unfair business practices. In short, we have addressed a perennial social justice issue head on by looking forward and backward to develop a process to divest, terminate, or economically punish those that engage in acts that violate or inconsistent with the views and policies of our great city. This is not radical and this is not new. In fact, Seattle has a long and proud history a place in our social policy values above the pursuit of pure profits. Our current city investment policy clearly states a city social policy will take precedence over furthering the city's financial objections when expressly authorized by city council ordinance or resolution , except where otherwise provided by law or trust principles. Imagine its investments. The city shall seek opportunities to get business with institutions by their nature, by their charter. I'm sorry. Seek to benefit the common good. And do not solely pursue maximum profit. That's our investment policies. Page four I'm sorry. Policy number four. Page two. The city has always made it clear that our values are morals. Our humanity and compassionate sensibilities have always influenced and dictated our City Council actions. Whatever harms the common good, whatever is deemed an unfair business practice or whatever offends our sense of justice and accountability will not be tolerated upon review of our investment policies and subsequent laws. From 2001 today I offer a brief and legal historical review of such resolutions and laws. Don't worry, I won't go on and on. As a lawyer, I'll be very brief. In November of 2011, City Council passed Resolution 31337 to protect the peaceful and lawful exercise of the First Amendment rights of Occupy Seattle and others. A subsequent review of our investment policies took place and it was stated the city will review its banking and investment policies and practices to ensure that public funds are invested in responsible financial institutions that support our community. This was in November 2011. The city may also consider future legislation to promote responsible banking and provide an incentive for banking institutions to invest more in our city, particularly with regard to stabilizing the housing market and supporting the creation of new businesses. This review should include evaluating policies on responsible, depositing and management of city funds. Other sections go on to discuss home foreclosures, lending, banking practices, and address economic inequality and wealth disparities by race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender. In December of 2012, as my sister Pam shared, City Council passed Resolution 31420 proclaiming Seattle as a human right city . And some of you may wonder, what does that have to do with today? It has to do with this. It is our commitment to human rights, as stated, to constitute an important framework of human rights principles for cities to strengthen and improve the impact of laws and policies on local communities, as well as provide a model for municipal governments to translate and implement universal human rights principles at the local level. And today that is water. On August 2013, Wells Fargo was selected to the city's RFP process and in compliance with the then current socially responsible banking law and the city's investment policies. In June 2014, Council passed Resolution 31525, a decision to divest from fossil fuels. More recently, in August 2016, Council passed Resolution 31709 proclaiming our support for the Standing Rock Sioux Nation's opposition to the construction, the Dakota Access Pipeline. Again, we have a long history of recognizing social injustice and taking political and legal action at a municipal level to combat such actions inconsistent with our values and way of life. Be it human rights, civil rights, the environment and economic disparity. We have always accepted the challenge to do the right thing. We as a city have many tools to fight unfair business practices discrimination, illegality, inequality and social injustice. Divestment, termination of contracts and debarment are a few of them. And that's what we're discussing today in this bill. Our goal, our intent was to divest from Wells Fargo. That was never a question. The question was how being mindful of the law, trust principles and contract termination and penalties. We do have a fiduciary responsibility to protect the city's treasury. This process began in early October, October 2016, when our Mayor, Ed Murray, City Council President Bruce Harrell and Councilmember Tim Burgess sent a letter of intent, most more notably to terminate a $100 million bond financing deal regarding Seattle City Light. Our city did that with the stroke of a pen. People say money talks. We say, No, it doesn't. We do. People also say that knowledge is power. But in the words of Vine Deloria Jr, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, a famous theologian, attorney, historian, author and activist. We learned I learned that knowledge is not power. Morality is. You may remember Vine Deloria, Dr. Deloria from Custer died for your sins and God is red. He was a former professor of mind and a mentor of mine, and I learned much from him. In conclusion, on a personal note, as a native woman, a mother, a tribal member, an attorney who has lived and fought for all these principles in my personal and professional life, I am proud of my city today. Recently, this past month, my tried to Blackfeet Nation is celebrating a major victory that 130,000 acre badger to Madison area in western Montana is now free of any oil and gas leases. The final. Thank you so much. That means a lot to me. The final two oil and gas leases were canceled. This took our people almost 30 years to achieve. We are one step closer to preserving our sacred land, dating back over 10,000 years to medicine originally meant on our river that there were two medicine lodges. And then now, as we call it now, is called to Medicine River, which the river for the water flows from Chief Mountain, which is the most sacred area in my reservation and where my Indian name comes from, not to you. Misty Starkey, Holy Mountain Woman We can now preserve and honor our land without the prospect of future energy development. No small feat. We will continue to support the efforts of our brothers and sisters of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation and pray they too will regain control over their sacred land and be left in peace now and for many generations to follow. We are here today because we fought for our treaty rights, sovereignty, civil rights, the environment and economic justice. And we will continue as native people. We know how to wait. We know how to be patient, but to fight, we work hard and we work together. But more importantly, we're good to each other and we pray. I get it. This council gets it, Seattle gets it. I want to thank Councilmember Burgess, who drafted this bill and asked for my assistance and asked me to be a co-sponsor. We spent many hours making sure that we did it right. I also want to thank my council members, Herbold, SWAT and Gonzales for making this a better bill. I would like to say today that I'm very proud of my colleagues. We've all work together to make this a better bill, and I'll be voting yes. Thank you. So at this point I'd like to work through the amendments and then we can have an amended piece of legislation we can either talk about or vote on. So. Councilmember Gonzalez, I going to refer to your First Amendment as Amendment A, and would you like to walk us through that amendment? And B Yeah, I have to. I have two amendments Amendment A and Amendment B, an amendment A is simply just cleaning up some language related to how we define unfair business practices. During last week's committee, I had posed the question as to whether or not the Washington Protection Act, Chapter 19.86 RC W defined the terms that appear on lines eight through nine and had received an indication from Councilmember Salon at that point that it was her belief that it did. However, I went back, given my lawyer Spidey senses, I went back and read and actually read 19.86 RTW and confirmed that those terms are not defined in that particular chapter of the RTW. So have worked with a lot of Parliament to come up with this language which simply just says that we can look at all Washington and all federal consumer protection laws to define the terms discriminatory, deceptive, fraudulent or abusive in the context of how we will evaluate what an unfair business practices. So this is largely a technical amendment to make sure that we're referring to the right definitional context for these terms. Did you describe A and B or just A? I just described. Okay. Go ahead and describe. And then we could just vote on them sequentially. If there's any other conversations about a a only comes first one. Thank you, President Herrell. This is an excellent technical amendment that Dan Ito from central chair of thanks to him, recommended to my office, and Councilmember Gonzalez his office to remove the reference to the RTW that existed in the previous version in the definition of unfair business practices. The amended definition instead rests on all the relevant state and federal definitions, which is more consistent with how it has been written. So it makes the definition clearer than it was before. Thanks to Dan. Thank you, Councilmember Swan. Any other comments on just Amendment A? So why don't we? Why don't you describe to us Amendment B as well and we'll just vote on them sequentially? Sure. Amendment B is related to original recitals, five and six. Those recitals referred to issues related to the number of employees that were terminated by Wells Fargo after the reports of their fraudulent consumer practices came to light. That was recital number five. Recital number six. Original recital number six refers to and documents the type of investments that Wells Fargo makes primarily in the private prison complex industry. So there were council members at the time on last Wednesday's committee hearing who had concerns about citing to news media reports about those particular facts. So I was challenged to find other sources. I believe I have risen to that challenge and that I have cited to the clerk file, which includes a consent order that says exactly the same thing that I think council members wanted to communicate via herder recitals, number five and number six. So I am putting those before the full council today for adoption. And again, it, I believe, meets the the value that I believe council members wants original recitals intended to to convey, which is that there were there was behavior by Wells Fargo related to opening potentially fraudulent accounts and that it was their line employees who suffered the brunt of of of terminations as a result of that, rather than their high up CEOs, etc.. And it also encapsulates information related to how Wells Fargo invest heavily. And it provides a lot of debt financing to immigration detention centers like the Northwest Detention Center. Excellent. Any comments on Amendment B? I just want to say thank you very much, Councilmember Gonzales, for doing that homework. And I appreciate your spidey sense. It's a lot more words, and I appreciate that it's a lot more words than it was originally, but there was a lot to be said. Councilmember Swan. Thank you. President Harrell Of course supporting all the amendments, but just and also I feel that the passage of this legislation is the most important thing and that's what's under paramount consideration. And I and I want to speak to that later, but just in the interests of the activists who have been part of the movement, just to clarify some things here, none of these amendments were completely necessary. As I had said in the committee before, all my amendments, which actually all passed, were all vetted through the law department. And also just because of, you know, we wanted to satisfy our own curiosity. My staff and I did a quick five minute search today of previous legislation passed by the city council and found that media are regularly cited in Seattle's various clauses and have three examples here. One is a resolution council passed unanimously that I put forward last summer, citing Open Secret or the New York Times and The Washington Post . Another is a resolution from Councilmember O'Brien that we passed, citing the Wall Street Journal and the Business Insurance magazine. And last and a resolution, Councilmember Bagshaw citing The Washington Post. And and I think that aside from the point that this is a regular feature of our work and that there was nothing unique about this, I think that it's also should be noted that when there are issues of social justice that pit the movement against the powers that be, often the movement respond to it. We don't have credible sources because the establishment does not allow documenting of those things. I mean, look how long it took for the Dakota Access Pipeline movement to get this it incredible. You know what is considered credible media and government publications would not have spoken to such events often. And so I just wanted to say that in terms of being common practice for the city council and also the fact that movements have to rely on their own efforts and their own sources, often that I think the original amendment were also fine, but I'll also support these ones. Thank you, Councilman Schweikert. So unless I have any further comments on amendment a amendment, be prepared to vote for those amendments. So I will move. I'll move. Councilmember Gonzalez's amendment. But I'll just vocalize it. And since I'm presiding right now, I'll move Amendment eight, which is Councilmember Gonzales amendment to amend Council Bill 118905 by substituting Section two . Is she provided in the attachment? Zero. Second. Second. All those in favor of a minute a vote I. I oppose. The ayes have it now move to amend amendment B which is Councilwoman Gonzales is amendment to council bill 118905. By substituting the fifth and sixth recitals as she provided in the attachment their second. All those in favor say I. I oppose. The ayes have it. So we have an amendment piece with A and B and Councilmember Herbold. I believe you have an amendment C I'd like to propose. I do. Thank you. At the committee meeting last week, there was an interest in like in the previous amendment discussed. There is interest in identifying more primary sources. And I think even though the council has in resolutions in the past relied on media reports or the reports of advocacy organizations, I do think that in those instances, when you can find the primary sources, it does strengthen the bill. And I want to give a shout out to Hugh McMillan with with one such advocacy organization and the work that he did with my office in identifying what some of the primary sources are. We also the other the other big concern from last week was the desire to make sure that the citations that we were including were timely, the most recent filings. And so whereas one of the things that we sacrifice in getting more precise is the pettiness of our recitals. I think, again, that that sacrifice is making this recital much stronger. And in in summary, clarifies that the Securities and Exchange Commission filings regarding Wells Fargo support for the companies involved in the Dakota Access pipeline includes 347 million in credit facility commitments. In other words, available credit. They serve as an administrative agent for an additional $3.75 billion line of credit, one of the three main large lines of credit. They underwrite bonds. They underwrote bonds for 450 million in 2015 and 72 million just on January 11th of this year. Also notes that this has been done, that this that that all of this has been done in support of the Dakota Access pipeline as the project, as we know, has been opposed by nearly 200 Indian nations and environmental organizations, and also make sure that we get on the public record the police response to that opposition, including targeting project opponents and journalists with arrest, use of rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray and fire hoses in freezing weather. And this is particularly, I think, relevant right now as we've heard that that in response to the president's executive order, the Army Corps of Engineers today issued a notification of intent to terminate the environmental impact statement process for the pipeline. They intend to issue an easement for 30 years, and they've announced that the Army Corps could waive its policy of waiting 14 days after congressional ratification. And they say the Corps intends to execute this easement no earlier than 24 hours following delivery of this letter. We got this information from from who at Food and Water Watch this afternoon. And it it really moves me to think of the people who are hundreds of miles away from us today, waiting in the cold. For our. Vote. I'm incredibly moved just to imagine the people who this means so much to. Thank you, Councilmember. Horrible Councilmember. Are there any further comments on Council on the Herbold amendment? Councilmember, whereas. Thank you. First of all, I want to thank council members who want for the amendments that she made. And I want to thank Councilmember Herbert and Gonzalez for going back and look at the primary sources. And since I was originally the one that raised this concern, the concern was this I would rather have the primary source. Conclusions of law based on facts. I want this to be the gold standard across this country, where other cities will look at this and say, this is what we looked at ten documents, eight of them being from courts, finding factual findings and conclusions of law. What Wells Fargo did and also primary sources that they have invested in this pipeline and of course, invested in private prisons. That was my only concern. My concern wasn't that. I just I'm not comfortable with an editorial or an opinion, but I do want to support and I do understand Councilmember Sawant in the issues that she raised . So that is why I kind of, as you saw, was making clear that in order to make this powerful and forceful and robust and really speak to the facts of the situation that I wanted primary sources in making sure that we had the actual definitions correct. So again, I want to thank Councilmember Swan for bringing these issues up and I want to thank Councilmember Herbold and Gonzales for following up and making sure that we nailed it. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Whereas so is there more discussion on Amendment C? So I'm going to move this in then I have a few remarks I'd like to make for Councilmember Herbold. I will move to amend Counts Bill 118905 by submitting the eighth recital as provided in Amendment C by virtue of Councilmember Herbold amendment. Is there a second? All those in favor of amendment C, but I. I oppose the ayes have it. Okay. We have three amendments. Yeah. So we have a little dilemma. Just bear with me. Councilmember Herbold has to be at a pressing matter, and we want to hear her words as well if she wants to participate. I don't need. I was just I want to participate in the vote. I don't I don't have any further words. So. So we we know that we're going to pass this. And so this may be a little unique to do, but what I may do is move it. Vote it. Mm hmm. Excuse. COUNCILMEMBER Then we will. As we say, this is my reference as speechifying after we vote. Okay, this is it. Is everyone fine with that? And so we're going to move it, vote it, and then we will have comments after. So. I will move. Actually, it's already been a minute. I just have to call the role, so please call the role on the passage of the amended bill. I say that correctly. Okay. Okay. Okay. Herbold, I. Johnson Suarez, I. O'Brien Hi, Sergeant Major Burgess. Hi. Gonzales. Hi. President Harrell. Hi. Nine in favor. Nine opposed. To the bill. Passing the same. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa. Since we're doing things a little orthodox, why don't we? Caspian Burgess why don't you take us through the issue on the clerk file? We'll move to file that and then we'll have some discussion. So it's already been read into the record. That's. Oh. At the request of Councilmember Herbold. If there's no objection and an additional supplemental document will be added, the clerk filed 314368 entitled, quote, Department of Justice, Wells Fargo, Improper Mortgage Lending Practices, Stipulation and Settlement, close quote. Okay. And just so it's sort of clear, what we're doing is we don't have to formally amend the clerk file, but we are adding a document to it, and that will be what we will move to. And so I don't think there's any objection on that. So those in favor of filing clerk filed 314368. Please vote i i those opposed vote no. So the motion carries the clerk five is placed on file in particular with that additional attachment. So now let's go back to our underlying bill and we're going to lose about half of our audience. But that's but that's quite okay. This is a remarkable piece of legislation. Councilmember Johnson, would you like to share some thoughts? Just briefly, council president, I want to say how great this has been. It's been wonderful to see such a multi-generational effort. I was at a six year old birthday party getting lobbied by kindergartners about this topic. Leisel Jones at the Farmers Market. I've been lobbied by a great grandmothers who talk about how important this is. It's important to me personally, as an 11 year old, I was an organizer with Earth Day 20 here in the Seattle area. I spent 12 years working for an environmental organization here in town and was really reflecting yesterday about how incredible was to have a snow day here and yet also feeling very sad, recognizing that we are now in the third year in a row of the highest temperature globally on record and concerned that this may be one of the few times that my kids will ever have that kind of a snow day here in our city, which is really disturbing for somebody who grew up here. So just want to say how proud I am of the national opportunity here to build on the successes of this adopted ordinance and really, really proud that it started here. Thank you, Councilmember Johnson. The floor is open for comments on the accounts bill we just passed. Councilmember O'Brien. Q I want to thank everyone here for all of your work and for giving us the opportunity to vote for this. I'm really proud to stand with the eight other council members here. We did. Today was a great step forward in towards removing Wells Fargo and their the practices that we don't support, including their investments in Dakota Access Pipeline, other pipelines, which is a great step. We need to continue that and actually replace them with a bank that shares our values. And one of the best ways to do that is if we can have the state government authorize a state bank. There was supposed to be a public hearing this morning down in Olympia on the Senate bill that would create the state bank because of the weather that was postponed. It's actually going to be Thursday morning now at 8 a.m.. So if any of you or folks, you know, can go testify or sign in support of that of Bob Hassell, Senator Bob Hossack, Iowa's State Bank bill, that would be outstanding. If we don't get the state bank, we're going to have to look for nonprofit banks like credit unions or other local banks who are at least more accountable to the people in this community than a national bank. But it's critically important not just that we remove folks like Wells Fargo, but replace them with someone who shares our values. I will. I know customers want me to have something. So I'll just say very briefly that this is indeed a remarkable piece of legislation. I think Councilmember Herbold said before she left that we have to be very mindful that while we sit in the luxury of a 70 degree room, there are people putting their lives on the line. There are fighters in this room that this is more than a piece of legislation. This is this affects your culture, your family, everything you believe in. So when I see my colleagues and we start sort of playing inside baseball about certain things, as I guess councils do, I'm very mindful of the fact that we are not the enemy, that the enemy were the egregious actions of Wells Fargo Bank that we do not condone at all. Our enemy is the. Is the federal government's ignorance relative to the DAPL project and what we stand for, what our values are. We have to always be mindful, I think, of who our opponent is and its leaders here in our own local community that have really put the fire under us. And so for that, we thank you. And we are better public servants as a result of your leadership. Thank you. But I'm very sure. I want to say thank you, council president, because you just nailed what I have been thinking, which is we've all worked together on this to support our our culture just across the lines in our nation. We've also been here supporting family together. And I just want to acknowledge the hard work that so many of you have done, so many of you who are at Standing Rock. And I also want to acknowledge my. My Holy Mountain Woman sister for what she has done. Councilmember Juarez, last weekend, I know that you and Councilmember Burgess came, helped rewrite some of the language and you made it stronger. Councilmember Gonzalez, so appreciate your amendments to this. And Councilmember Herbold. I love that you rose to the challenge and you certainly exceeded my wildest dreams. But I also appreciate something here in this room that we're not fighting each other, that there is enough negativity across the United States with our federal government right now for us figuring out ways to work together and work with you. I want to acknowledge that. Thank you so much, all of you, for coming. Just really quickly, I wanted to also express my gratitude and thanks to all of you for the work that you do every day on behalf of your own community and our collective community. I think it's a really important day for a lot of respects, not just the fact that we are honoring the movement that all of you have fought really hard to build, but that we're doing it together and that we recognize that there are there is absolute power and movement building and absolute power in terms of going out into the streets. But we have to figure out as a community how to translate that power into actual action. And I think that's what we're doing today. We are taking a bold policy step today that is reflective of what this movement wants to see and is asked to see. And I hope that you all believe that that that is our true intent here. I'd also like to say that for me personally, growing up as a migrant farm worker to immigrant parents in central Washington, I have not typically seen myself or people who look like me or sound like me or have similar lived experiences like me represented within the mainstream environmental movement. And this is the first time in in my life where I feel like there is an environmental movement that speaks to me personally, because it's talking about respecting who you are as a person and as a culture and what that means for your livelihood and your family. And as somebody who grew up largely dependent on whether or not the cherry harvest this year was going to be good or bad, and that meant whether I was going to get $100 for school clothes this year or $50 of school clothes for this year, I deeply understand how important it is for us to have that human lived experience perspective reflected in in how we talk about climate change and our environment as a whole. And so I want to thank you so much for lifting that perspective to be part of this conversation around climate change. And I want to lastly end by saying thank you for the honor song. I know that that is a big deal within the native community and with a native country. And I and I just am so humbled and honored to have been able to have been in this room, in this position, receiving that that honor from you all. So with that being said, I honor all of you for the work that you're doing and that I know that you'll continue to do. Thank you. Thank you. Contrary to what? Thank you, President Harrell. Thanks to all the council members for voting yes on this legislation, as far as I know. Seattle is the fourth city to have divested from Wells Fargo. The example that we have set today can be a beacon of hope to activists all around the country looking to change the economic calculus of corporations who think that investing in the Dakota Access pipeline will be good for their bottom line, where making it bad for their bottom line. And I wanted to acknowledge the victory that have already been achieved. The University of California divested to the tune of $475 million the day before our committee vote. But after our committee vote, the Michael Shore Drive divested from Wells Fargo and a Dutch bank, ABN Amro, divested from the pipeline. You know, I think because of at least partly because of the pressure we're building. And my staff member, Ted Vardon, told me that he's actually on the phone right now with an activist from Santa Barbara who wants their city council to divest from Wells Fargo. And they called us to ask us, how did we do this? Real power of this ordnance that can be used as a tool by movements to put real financial pressure on big business by first putting pressure on politicians. And I really agree with those of you who have said that we need to use this momentum not only against a pipeline to put that pipeline to rest once and for all, which is absolutely critical for our fight against climate change and fight for indigenous rights. But we should also use this to build our fight for Seattle's rights to a public bank. I. And what an honor it is to have been part of this inspiring movement. We had a little snow in Seattle yesterday, but that is nothing compared to the images of the courageous people in Standing Rock who battled blizzards to hold the line against the oil lobby and against banks. That is truly inspiring. Some of you have personally traveled to Standing Rock to join the protest. Others have demonstrated in solidarity. Here to our no debt, no double Seattle movement. And together, we are building the power of regular people to fight to take our world back from Trump and the billionaires and the oil lobby. And let's think about locally the power that we have built to this specific movement in Seattle. As you all remember, my fellow activists, you and I, we sent this legislation for introduction on November 1st last year, but by mid-December it still had not been introduced yet in committee. So our movement came to full council to demand its introduction and we won by mid-January, still had not been heard. And our movement called councilmember offices to get its hearing. And we won. The new draft of the legislation was introduced. That was excellent in many ways, but omitted the role of the movement itself. And we moved five amendments to restore that language, and we won. And I want to thank all of you. But I wanted to I mean, first of all, the names of the people who have led this movement are too numerous. And that's what makes it a powerful movement. But I still wanted to name a few names. First of all, I wanted to thank all the staff members Kirsten Armistead, Don Aida and Patricia Lee in central staff for writing this and working with us working so hard. Thanks to the Finance and Administrative Services, which is the city department and also to the city attorney's office, specifically Kristen Lamson, who has been working on this with us since November. But special thanks to Matt Rumley, Milly Kennedy. Alec Cannon, please. All your applause for all of them. Madam Lee, Milly Kennedy, Alec Connon, Rebekah Deutsch, Rachel Hayden, Ray Kingfisher, Paul Wagner and Jackie Ross. All activists and leaders from the indigenous community. My fellow activist Nikita Oliver, who has made this important recognition that the struggles of all oppressed peoples are united. Thanks also to my staff member, Ted Vardon, who many of you know, and Rachel gave a gift for him to which I've accepted on his behalf, which I'll be conveying to him soon. Thanks also. And as I speak now, as a member of the labor movement, thanks also to the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters, who just sent a letter to the Wells Fargo CEO talking about how Wells Fargo's executive vice president, Jeffrey Grubb, through his leadership role on the M.J. Murdoch Charitable Trust, has helped finance the extremist anti-labor Washington State based Freedom Foundation that has fought against workers rights every step of the way. And I know them personally because they were fighting against $15 an hour. And so this further shows that the that the rights of workers as a whole and the survival of the labor movement is so tied to the fight against the Dakota Access pipeline, the fight for black and brown rights, and the fight against climate change. Thanks to everyone who has sacrificed and sweated and bled to build this movement. There is no guarantee that when we fight, we will win. But it is for sure that if we don't fight, we will lose. And I want to thank the indigenous community as a whole for showing so clearly to all of us that our fight for our planet is paramount. And the last point I'll make is that we live in a what I feel is an irrational world. As Oxfam reported, eight people own the same wealth as the half of bottom half of the world's population. That's $3.5 billion. This, in my view, is completely irrational. It is irrational that we are so divided in world that that world buys the power to write laws that benefit the rule of a few at the top and no one else. And nowhere is this more starkly visible than with big banks and oil companies. In any rational world, the trillions that are hand in the hands of the multinational oil companies would not be used to lobby for wars in Iraq and pipelines poisoning our water and climate. If we had any democracy over our economy. Those trillions would be used to turn to transform the energy infrastructure into renewables and to creating decent living standards for all human beings. But sisters and brothers, it's not a rational world under capitalism. So our fight today is very much linked to our larger fight against big business, against Wall Street, against Trump and the billionaire class, and against capitalism itself. And this is the last point I'll make. This is radical. When we build movements to challenge the status quo and when these movements are powerful enough that they force corporate politicians to take a stand in favor of the movement when it is not their instinct that is radical, fighting against the status quo is radical. Let's not allow corporate politicians say that we're doing this anyway. You can just go home. No, we we not only have to recognize the role of the movement in this, we have to redouble the efforts of our movement if we are to win against the Dakota Access Pipeline and against Trump. Just once, if there are no further comments on that particular bill or clerk file, we're going to move on to our next agenda item. I don't see anyone in hands going up, so a lot of shredded exigent item into the record, please.