Input: The Committee of the whole. The meeting will come to order. All right. Clerk, would you please call the roll? Thank you, Madam Chair. Council member Baldacci. Here. Council member Dombrowski. Council member Done it. The member got it here. Council Member Caldwell. Council member McDermott here. Council member of the Grove. Council member one Right there. Madam Chair. Here. OC. Do you have a report? Good report. They're all. Right. All right. Would you put the minutes of October 3rd before us, please? Remove adoption of the third minutes? Okay. Those in favor of the minutes as written, please say I write those opposed say nay. The minutes are approved as written. All right. I'm going to take something out of order because it's quick. And that is a bond issue. So you can see our bond issue is number five and six. Okay, let's go five and six real quick. And Mr. Haymaker. Thank you, Madam Chair. Excuse me. Across a very open department. Thank you very. Much. To say. Thank you. Would I? We would be at recess for a moment, please. So that. On the record. You are out of order again. As always, thank you for your your display of sweetness. And so we can document that, so that we can get to our three when we can get back to sanity. All right, Mr. Hammacher, you follow sanity. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. For the record, Patrick Hamacher, counsel, staff items five and six in your packets. Our proposed ordinance 2016 0500 and proposed motion 2016 0501. That the package of legislation taken as a whole continues a program that's been in place for several years, and that is for the wastewater treatment utility to issue instead of long term debt, but to have some portion of their debt portfolio be short term debt. In this case, it allows the department to take advantage of the very low short term debt markets. This program has been in place for many years. Last year at this time, the executive requested an extension of the program, which the council granted but was unclear at that time whether they wanted to continue the program beyond an additional year. So the Council gave the executive a year to study the program. The executive has recommended continuing the variable rate debt program covered by this ordinance. I'm now speaking from the bottom of page or the top of page ten in your staff report. The ordinance allows the issuance of $100 million in variable rate debt. In other words, debt tied to short term interest rates as opposed to long term interest rates. This provides the department a hedge against interest rate risk. The executive staff is estimating that the interest rate on these bonds will be about 1%, as opposed to between four and 5% on long term debt. The financial plans for the wastewater utility allow up to 20% of the outstanding debt to be covered by variable rate bonds with inclusion of this $100 million. 14% of the wastewater debt will be variable rate, so it's well within the policy limit. There's currently about $3.6 billion in outstanding wastewater treatment division debt. The executive has requested an expedition of these two items because the current bond program is expected to expire at the end of November. The proposed motion that is included with the ordinances would approve. Usually you don't know who's going to win the debt when you approve it because it's long term debt and it's essentially a competition on the day of the sale because this is a ongoing program that will roll. They actually know who the selected vendor has been. They've selected State Street Bank as the result of a competitive process where the county received nine bids and their bids were independently evaluated by both the county financial staff and also the county's financial advisor. So taken as a whole, they would continue the existing program. There are no other policy implications of the package before you, and that concludes my staff report. So three quick questions. So how long will this program go and is this program we can have indefinitely? No. This is a. Program that can roll indefinitely. Okay. Consistent with the policy, because it consistent with the wastewater treatment division policy. And approximately how much money do you think this will save us? Well, that's something in this case, what you can do is compare short term to long term. Long term debt is between four and 5%. They're expecting in the short run this to be about 1%. So there's a significant savings there. But because it rolls regularly, it wouldn't it's not really that you would make that comparison over time. If short term rates were to spike, you might just not continue this program. So it's it's a huge savings. In the short term. If it ever stops being a savings, you can roll out of the short term debt into more long term debt. Okay. Any questions from anybody on the council? I'm glad to see that we're doing this. And because of the interest rates being so low, do you think there's going to be any more looking to get us closer to the 20% so we can save more money? I haven't heard of any plans from that. I can I can check with the executive staff. It's it's been kind of the program's been in the kind of $500 million range for a number of years. So that program has stayed the same. What has changed is as we've built bright water, the overall debt of the division has gotten bigger and so the percentage has gone down. So I think there the executive branch is comfortable with the size of the program, but I can ask them that offline and get your answer to that. All right. Councilmember, would you be willing to put both of them together? Are you alright with me taking on both together? Ordinance 2016 500 and Motion 2016 5a1. Which I move. We give a do pass recommendation to ordinances 2016. 505 oh one. Thank you. Are there any questions or comments but that the critical piece calls for the. Thank you, Madam Chair. Council Member Baldacci High Council Member DEMBOSKY Thank you. Council Member Dunn Council Member. Dorset. Council Member. Coles I. Council Member McDermott. High Council Member of the group. I don't have to provide right there. Madam Chair, today, Madam Chair, the vote is six I's and three Council members excused. Council Member Dombrowski, Council member in council member of the Grove. Excellent. Thank you very much. Okay. Sorry. Council member Van Wright, not council member of the government. Okay, great. Thank you. So we're going to go back now. What would you what would you like to do with those items. Since you needed it right away? Expedite. And I think it's okay to put on consent. So let's expedite consent. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you for reminding me on that. Okay. Let's go back up to our special item today. And this is a proclamation for October as Filipino-American History Month. We are very excited. We have many friends in the audience and we're glad to see you with us. And Councilmember Gossett, you are in charge of the proclamation. That was my on board who started that class. If I had known, I went to join them. We went to the University of Washington together. Madam Chair and colleagues, it gives me a great deal of privilege and pleasure to present this very special proclamation to you all and to our larger listening audience. We televise all of our meetings on television, so there is a larger audience that will be seeing this program. And King and and martin luther king jr counted. And I don't know how many of our guests know this the only geographic area in the United in the world communities gathering this named in honor of Dr. King and his picture is our logo and we're very proud of that because it has a certain richness and political importance to moving toward democratic experience for people regardless of gender, background, race, etc. It really has served us well, but this morning and we are very happy to celebrate with most of our guests who are here presently. Filipino American History Month. Here in Washington State, a Washington has about the third largest Filipino population in the country. I think the other one or two are also on the West Coast, mostly in California. Some of the neighborhoods and most of our most of your brethren and our brothers and sisters reside in Seattle, are called Beacon Hill, Rainier Valley, Rainier Beach , Skyway, Al Gonzales, shoreline, west Seattle. Those are the names of the neighborhoods in which many of your brethren reside, and they're doing pretty well. The average income in Seattle is now a little over $80,000 a year. Filipinos, on average make a little more than 60,000. That's really quite good average family income or household income. And we're very proud of that richness, the intelligence and the contributions that Filipino people have made to our community. But few realize that the first Filipino that came to what is now the United States of America got here over 400 years ago, and they came with the Spanish conquistadors who were exploring and conquering what is now California. So y'all didn't just get here 50 years ago. You've been here way before, most of the rest of us. But today we are honored to have among our Filipino community that we haven't had before a very special delegation of 12 people from been on loan in Philippines. Oh, well. And I do not think oh thank you that that delegation is headed by the mayor of that fine city, Mayor Ramone Gecko and his vice mayor, Malaysia Party. And I'd like right now for both of those gentlemen to join me at the podium. The mayor invites him. Okay. And we'd be remiss if we didn't recognize the representatives of the Filipino community that reside here in Seattle and Martin Luther King County. So as long as they represent me and I'm offer that. I'd like to just say a couple more things and then don't turn over to the mayor and the local representative. I'll just say a few words and then we'll take some entertain any questions or comments that you all might have and then take some pictures. This delegation's here to do research and to visit sites connected to the famous or infamous, depending upon how you look at him. Portland and writer Carlos Wallison, who immigrated to the United States way back in 1930. And Carlos is the author of the most popular book ever published by the University of Washington. Five of my colleagues graduated from the University of Washington. So we know about the. Book. And I read from there. And the title of that book was America is in the Heart. So without further ado, I would like to ask the mayor and the vice mayor to say a few words to you all about why that why they're here and what they hope to get out of this particular experience in this part of the U.S.. Mayor. Thank you. Councilman Larry Gossett, members of the council and the chairperson, members of the Filipino community. Let me introduce to you first our members of the delegate from being alone and of course, Vice Mayor Ali Pataki. We have Councilor Georgie Galvani and her husband, engineer Frederick Carbone. We have the wife of the vice mayor, Dora Joyce Galvani. Uh, of course. My wife. Mine. My ever supportive mother. Arlene. Mother? Yeah. My brother. RG Koch. Leo. Dr. Cornell Aquino, who is with the Education Department in our town and our planning officer and engineer Beth Aquino, of course, Professor Emanuel Anthony. He was very instrumental in connecting us with Cindy and of course, Councilman Larry. So the Filipino community. Good morning. We are so grateful that you gave us a very warm welcome here in Seattle in spite of the rain. Yesterday, it was so cold. So, you know, we are not used to this kind of weather. But still, the welcome was very warm. Our mission here is actually to reconnect with our fellow Filipinos and trace back at least to get an idea of the life of our famous writer who was born in our town. And we celebrate actually his death anniversary every September 11. We do a Carlos Blue Sunday, and our mission is actually to going to go at his grave site and reconnect with the Filipinos who are in the education, in the universities. And we are going to put up a museum of our own and a library so that our people, people from our town, would know about. The life of this great man is famous everywhere in America, in Europe, but ironically is not so famous in our own town. So we would like to put up the museum and probably get the whole of copies of his original manuscripts, interviews and all the things that we could exhibit in the university. And so far, our Filipino community and, of course, the officers of the county who have been very helpful and we are so grateful to be part of this historic proclamation of this program. And on behalf of the town of been alone and of the delegates, we are so thankful the Filipino community here in King County and the officials of King County Council. Thank you. Mr. Vice Premier. Would you like to say anything to an audience? Yeah. For you. Thank you, sir. With the kind permission of everyone, I will have my general greetings. Good morning to all of us. On behalf of the lawmaking body of our town, being alone and would like to say thank you for your warm welcome and giving us the opportunity to do some works here in relation to the putting up of a museum for our local hero, Karlis Baluta. Thank you. And again, good morning. Now we'd like to hear from the representative of the local Filipino community. Thank you and good morning. And on behalf of the Filipino community of. Seattle. And the whole Filipino community to the state of Washington, we would like to say our sincerest appreciation to this special recognition every year never. Fails. To recognize the contribution of our community in the great King County. Thank you so much. I'm Sheila Burris from the executive director of the Filipino community of Seattle. Thank you. Thank you. Well, we do welcome you. And we are thankful for the opportunity to have greater friendship with you. And we are glad that you have seen that our rain we call liquid sunshine. So I am happy that you've got a taste of our liquid sunshine and we are very thankful that we can learn from you and you from us in this great partnership. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Now it is my duty to read the formation. Whereas Filipinos have lived in the United States for over 425 years, beginning with the earliest documented proof of Filipino presence in the continental United States on October 18, 1587, in Morro Bay, California. And. Whereas, Washington State is home to the third largest Filipino population in the United States, and Filipino Americans are the largest Asian Pacific American population in the state of Washington, with the vast majority making King County their home. And. Whereas, Filipino Americans have contributed greatly to the cultural, economic, social and political life of King County. And. Whereas, King County is home to cultural and historical institutions important to the Filipino community locally, nationally and internationally, including, in that regard, the Alaskan Cannery Workers Union that was organized here on the island, did a lot of work, mostly in Alaska. And certainly Domingo of my staff lost her beloved brother Selma to his tremendous work of organizing Filipino and other workers in the canneries to improve their condition. The Inland Boatman's Union is also very important here locally. The Filipino American National Historical Society's National Office, the Filipino Community Center, which Sheila represents, is very important, and the Carlos Boulevard Historical Museum. And. WHEREAS, Filipino American History Month provides an opportunity to promote the study of Filipino American history and culture and recognizes the contributions made by Filipino Americans. Now, therefore, we, the King County Council, proclaim October as Filipino American Month in King County and encourage all county residents to join us in celebrating the many, many contributions of Filipino Americans who reside here among us and elsewhere in the United States. And this proclamation is dated today, the 17th day of October, 2006. We would be honored and the rest of you would join us for a picture along with the other elected officials from the town. I really don't. Know. I think it's. You got to work on. Honey. Well, you're supposed to be hands on, buddy this weekend, and. I don't know. I wish I could. And in this circumstance. Yeah. Thank you. Where did you find yourself? Are you doing okay? President Obama does not think that is on the table. Right now. Yeah, you're right. Like military intelligence. Young Republican. Good night. Alice. Okay, thank you. And let us go on to our next item and. Your a beauty and marketing. Sure. But I've got. You're about to get all of your money with me. Okay. Thank you. We're going to go on to our next day, which is 2016, briefing 157. It's item number seven on our agenda. And this is a briefing on the King County Library system. And most people get confused. They think the King County library system is actually part of King County government, and it's not. So that makes for some interesting opportunities. We are so lucky in this county to have a countywide library system that serves both the unincorporated areas and most of our cities and towns. King County Library System is one of the busiest library system in the entire country, with nearly 21 million items checked out last year. That's a lot of book rich shelving. So congratulations. King County Council helped to found this library system and we play a role in its governance by confirming the executive appointments of members and the board of trustees. And each year, the county has the opportunity to meet with our library director and board members. So we're glad to have you with us today. And I'm happy to continue that tradition this morning by welcoming our library director, Gary Wasden, and board president Bob Spitzer. And so, Mary, would you begin our introduction? Sure. Thanks, Madam Chair. For the record, I'm Mary Bergen on in the materials for this briefing begin on page 175 of your packets. As you noted, the King County Library system was approved by the voters back in nine in the 1940s and has been growing ever since then because the county council plays a role in the confirmation of board members each year. For the last several years, the Council has had the opportunity to hear from the librarian and members of the board. And so I'm delighted that this morning we have, as you mentioned, Madam Chair, Gary Wasden, who is the county librarian and board members, Rob Spitzer and chancellor. And I will turn it over to Mr. Wasden to present. Inviting. Madam Chair. Good morning, council members. I'm Garry Watson, library director for the King County Library System. It's a pleasure to be here with you this morning. Just to share a few quick updates, I have our board president, Rob Spitzer here with us and John Scheller, who is our government relations manager for the library system, which is a new position here. So we'll just share a few quick points with you and then take a few moments to answer any questions you may have or talk about anything of interest to you. I appreciate your hospitality and the kind comments we do have, really one of the busiest. We alternate between being the busiest and the second busiest library system in the country. It's pretty remarkable when you also realize that Seattle Public Library has a separate library system for us. If you added us together, we easily would be the busiest library system in the country, if not in all of North America. Our our patrons continue to be big library users and big library supporters. We've had a wonderful year. We're a little late in the year coming to you. We had to postpone a few times. So we're going to share a few things that are maybe slightly looking back at 2015, but also at 2016. One of the first things I wanted to thank you for was your support for the ballot box initiative to get ballot boxes in many of our libraries. That has been tremendous. One of our local goals here is to do everything we can as a library system to help encourage civic engagement, to help see greater voter turnout, and to make it easier for people to submit their ballots. We've seen wonderful responses for that. Many of you have taken the opportunity to come out to do a small little photo op. As we've cut the ribbon at these ballot boxes, we have several more that are opening now. So thank you for support and making that happen. And just a big thanks. We have a wonderful director of elections that's been a wonderful partner to work with in the library system. We also just completed our annual summer reading program, which we do every year. That program continues to grow. This year we had over 60,000 youth participating. Those are kids and teens reading during the summer months. It's a lot of fun and they think it's a lot of fun. But we also know it's really important keeping their minds active when they go back to school in the fall. They actually are performing higher than when they left in the spring, which is critically important. We've also continued in conjunction with that program to expand our summer meals program. As most of you know, during the summer, kids are out of school. They no longer have access, easy access to the free meals program. This year, we expanded the number of libraries participating. We had 15 libraries that were serving meals throughout the summer. That includes lunches, dinners and afternoon snacks. This year, we served just under 10,000 meals to kids in our 15 libraries participating in that program that is all done free to us. We provide the space and some staff support, but it's primarily supported through funding, through the Department of Education and through volunteer programs, the United Way and the Vista Volunteers. So it's a great service to provide keeping those meals local in the communities where kids and teens have easy access to them, they are available to anyone. We don't have to check any kind of idea or anything. We just provide the meals and any youth can come in and take part in the meal. We also last year, very importantly, formalized an agreement with the Seattle Public Library and have kind of had an on again, off again relationship with the library system. So last year we did formalize that and put into writing an agreement that gives all King County residents equal access to both library systems. That's particularly important on kind of the periphery libraries, those along kind of the northern corridor, in the southern corridor of Seattle, where for many Seattle residents, it's easier to get to our libraries and in some cases it's easier for our residents to get to a Seattle library. So now all of our residents throughout the King County can use both systems equally. I also want to mention that next year is our 75th birthday of the King County Library System. 75 years ago, the residents voted to establish the Rural Library District. So we'll have a great celebration going on all next year, which will be a lot of fun and well-timed with a lot of exciting things happening in the library. We'll have some information to share with you, and we'd like to encourage and share opportunities where you can come out to the libraries in your community for some of the special local celebrations. Just a quick final update on our capital projects, which of course, have dominated much of the work we've done over the last 14 years. As a reminder, we passed a bond in 24, which was a pretty major overhaul of our physical structures throughout the county. Touching each part of King County. Over the last year and a half, we opened the Renton Library downtown, the Renton Highlands Library. And the Skyway Library there in unincorporated King County. The Kingsgate Library opened in Kirkland, the beautiful new White Center library, also in unincorporated King County, reopened, and the renovated Mercer Island Library reopened earlier this summer. Those projects all came out incredibly successful, as you all know as well as anyone. There was a lot of contention around many of these projects. I'm very pleased to say, though, that we were able to get to a very positive place on all of these projects with the community members, and they are all happily using their libraries. We have a few remaining projects. We're very close to the end on this bond. We have the Tukwila Library, which is a brand new library, and Tuckwell are opening in January of next year. The Valley View Library in SeaTac is under renovation right now and that'll be reopening in early December. We have the Boulevard Park Library being renovated in Burian and that will be taking place next spring. We have a new library going into the Panther Lake region of Kent that is a and an existing space that we're currently in negotiations for leasing that will do kind of a retrofit to make it into a nice new library , a second space in Kent. And then last, we are expanding the library presence that we have in the South Center Mall, doubling the size of that library. So all of those projects will be taking place next year. And fittingly, finishing up all of these capital projects in our 75th year will be an extra special challenge for that . And with that, I'm going to turn over to Rob, who's just going to tell you a little bit about our strategic planning process. Thank you. So I'm Rob Spitzer, and I'm the president of the board of trustees this year for the King County Library System. There are five trustees, especially when all of our positions are filled. And if I could put it in a little plug when there are vacancies, it's really great to have them filled promptly just because it's a big system and we're all volunteers and it to have fewer than five sort of involved in trying to oversee. At some level, it's a real challenge. So what are you down a member at this moment. Right now we have five but we were until two months ago through 2016, we were at four. So it you know, it becomes a little tough. Anyway, we so we have, as you know, a new executive director, Gary Westin, who if I could put a plug in, he's doing a really a fabulous job. And we're really very, very happy that he's on board now, that he's been there just a little over a year and a half. We are doing something that's very important for organizations on a regular basis to do, and that's were embarking again in a strategic planning process. So, you know, Gary's now had enough time to sort of get to know the lay of the land and looking around really nationally and actually internationally at library usage, it's changing around the world. We all know e-books are playing a role now that they never did before. The King County Library system actually has the highest number of e-books checked out in the United States. So we we are a leader in that area. But sort of the changing role of the library is something that we're looking at very carefully. And so I mentioned we've embarked on a formal strategic planning process. I know that that Fred Gerard has already been sort of interviewed and people are going out in the community now. Our our planning consultants are helping us sort of analyze where should we go in the future just because plays or library system plays such an important role. We want to be ahead. We don't want to sort of fall behind. So that's something that's really important that we're doing. Something else that it's important to share with you is that we take our role as stewards of public monies, tax dollars, very seriously. We had a levy lid lift in 2010, sort of in the midst of the recession, and that community resoundingly supported a levy lily for the libraries, which is a major vote of confidence. We're doing so. We have generally budgeted sort of eight years between levy lid lifts. We're trying to go farther and longer without having to raise the to ask for another levy led lift. And so hopefully we can do it and and defer it until 2020 instead of 2018. I know this year in terms of our budgeting for the next year, Kerry's asked all of our departments to look at 3% reductions in each of their budgets, just so that we're really careful about not you know, there's a there's a certain level of prosperity in the county, as we know, but we're not taking that for granted. And we're really doing our best to. To be careful stewards of our dollars. Thank you. And, John, were you going to say something? Thank you, Madam Chair. And council members, just a quick word. My position government relations manager was created in April and my role is to improve and strengthen relationships with our other jurisdictions county council members, community service area community associations like West Hill. In fact, as I've been saying to Mingo here, I get to interact with him frequently area. So as part of the strategic planning process this afternoon, we're meeting with the Sound Cities Association members, mayors and city councils of all the cities and King County and just doing a lot of listening to hear input for our strategic plan. Thank you. So, Rob, I want to say that I so appreciate that you said that our new director is doing an amazing job. It's fabulous that every time I've called within a matter of a few minutes, I've got a phone call back or you answered and I get an answer. That is exactly what we were hoping for. So thank you for taking on some difficult problems and things that I'm sure that you didn't realize we were going to have to deal with not only inside libraries, but outside the libraries. And at this moment, everything is perfect. So that's a good thing. You have knock on wood, so that's great. And I'm sure they can say that all of us are excited about your 75th anniversary, and we'd like to celebrate that with you. That's wonderful. We are also glad about taking the tax out to 2020 so that there'll be less opportunities for suppression of other taxing districts. It's kind of a mess right now with how being close to the ceiling we are. So two things. When I didn't know we were serving meals. That is fantastic. So if you could get me the list of places in my district where those are being served, I would love to know that and go out and visit. It is really important and I'm glad that the schools are partnering so well with you. I was there when the Duval New Library opened and they did the book, the book line where we pass in the book, pass the books. That was so fun. And what was it called? There was a name for that. But anyway, it was really fun to do. And I think that we passed so many books that it probably made it easier to make the move. But it was truly an old fashioned town event and one that I really think is fantastic, and I don't think anybody that was there will. Ever forget it. So that was really fun. Bookmobile. How many where number of volume? How are we doing in Bookmobile? We have 19 vehicles and they don't have in front of me the breakdown specifically of of their visits. But I can send that to you. I will say, though, that it continues to expand and grow. We actually, this year for the first time hired dedicated drivers that had been a job that library staff did. They kind of rotated out among the libraries. So we started hiring dedicated drivers just because it's increasingly a bigger and bigger part of our service. What we found, as you can imagine, not just in the rural areas where the library may not be close by, but even in the more urban areas where people lack good transportation. There's been such a demand to get those bookmobile out to housing developments, to our senior centers, to daycares and places where we have a nice captive audience that are so excited to see their vehicle come out. Along with that, we've expanded that. We've always had a tech mobile, which is a bookmobile with computers on it. And this year we launched through funding, through our foundation, a program we called Idea X, which is a mobile makerspace. So it is taking a bookmobile and turning it into a mobile maker lab with 3D printing coding classes, design classes and programs targeting youth . Although we do have programs for all ages but heavily targeted towards youth that we can take out into the community and teach kids about newer kinds of technology. So is it the 3D competition? And those kids were rocking and rolling with all kinds of great ideas. So when you went the older kids class, I'm interested in some of the older 3D class. Thank you for your partnership with the voting. It's wonderful for people to know that they're either at city halls or libraries for our ballot box. So people are have that opportunity. And thank you also for the drop off at Redmond Ridge. That is really, really popular, too. Any questions for me, for anybody? Councilmember Gossett Thank you, Madam Chair. You mentioned about the e-books. I was kind of fascinated by our system here in King County, been. One is most frequently access for e-books. I'm never going to figure out what is an e-book. It's it's sort of exactly like a print book, except it's digital and it's a little you you use it just like a library book. So we subscribe, we buy e-books from vendors, just like a person could buy an e-book from their iPad or their Kindle. So we buy them and they're available through our website and you borrow them, meaning you go to our website, you find the one you want, you log in with your library card, you download it to your device and it stays on your device for two weeks and then it disappears after two weeks. So you're borrowing it. You have two weeks to read it, and then it's gone. The nice thing is there's no overdue fines. You don't have to remember to return it. It just automatically goes away. And you don't have to come to the library. Exactly. Exactly. And we're at about 3 million e-books circulated from class last year. That that makes us the busiest in the United States. Unfortunately, Toronto has a really busy library. So in North America, Toronto holds the title, but we're first in the U.S. and that question let me just add, since many people are still finding out we have e-books, we're really excited again through funding, through our foundation. We actually this fall later this fall in November, we'll be putting into e-book kiosks at SeaTac Airport so that people traveling through the airport will see our kiosk right there advertising our eBooks. They'll be able to browse the collection, download an e-book there. If they don't have a library card, they'll still be able to use it. It'll limit them to just up to three books and just for one week, but at least they can still try it, and then they can get a library card and have full use of the system. So that will expose even more people to our collections. And how do you know what boats are on there? Is there a list of those so. You can go? If you're just at home or on your device, you can go through our website and browse the collection. These kiosks we have, we have some in some of our libraries. This will be the first that we have outside of the library at Sea-Tac. And it's actually just a touch screen. You can browse through, you can search for a particular title. You can browse for, you know, look for a mystery or romance, or just scroll through and see something that grabs your eye. Yeah, I'm looking for the gang of four. Yeah. Mr. Guy said I have an autographed copy of that book. Yeah. Thank you for autographing it and I might let you share it. And so also on Read Aloud books. How are we doing on Read Allow books? Are there lots of those being downloaded? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's fantastic. Claudia, did she. Thank you. Yeah, it's this is very. I'm sorry. We're going to just use your time here now, but I have attempted several times to download books, and I have to say I'm really technically challenged with it. I suppose people like me need some help. How do you do this? I mean, I can get it on my computer, but I can't read it. Yeah, we we help site. You have it. You're in good company. There are lots of people like that. We do two ways, really, whatever's easiest for you. So at our libraries, I mean, you could walk into a library at any time and just ask for help. We also do these sort of e-book clinics where we actually sort of set up a little separate service station in our libraries. And that's just for that purpose where they can sit down with you, because everybody has a different device and a different skill. Level one on one help is usually best for some people. If you if you're the kind who can do this over the phone, you can also call our class service and they can talk you through it over the phone. A lot of people want to be there in person with the device, though, so whatever's easiest for you can either do it over the phone or just stop by the library. And it's really helpful for those of us who want to join this growing group of folks. And then just a quick thanks and an apology. The thank you is for your partnership on the the ballot drop drop boxes. It's so important. I think we're all living it this year. How important it is to make sure that as many people as possible are able to vote. We make it. We try. It's one of the most important functions we have here at the county. And the library has been such just a tremendous, tremendous partner to to locate those. So thank you very much. And I apologize for the $8.30 and overdue book fines that I currently have. Okay. Well, I'll make good on that. Part of the problem. Is you. Don't bother me about it. I have to go. We appreciate the. Catch. We'll give you exercise to take care of that right now so your conscience will be fine. Councilmember Denver. Thank you, Madam Chair. A third of my district in the city of Seattle and served by the Seattle Public Library. The balance of my district, Shoreline Lake Forest Park come to welcome Woodinville. And part of Kirkland is served by King County Library System. I hear from constituents from time to time that would like to see increased interoperability, if you will, between the two systems. What is the status? Then your relationship with the public library in terms of, you know, loan and seamlessness from the user's perspective, we seemed. Maybe we fixed this, but we seem to have always a little bit of an issue there. And what would it take to make it seamless if it isn't? I think right before you came in the room, I mentioned this that we did formalize a written agreement with Seattle Public Library. It's been kind of an on again, off again relationship. And for long periods of time it was very informal, which is never good because then it just can disappear when somebody leaves. So we actually put it in writing. So right now, all residents of King County have access to both library systems. So you can use either one regardless of which side of the border you live on as far as additional stuff. We are eager to continue to do more together and to work more closely together. We actually have a meeting with our senior management teams of both library systems coming up in two weeks to sort of lay the groundwork. One of the key things that I'd like to do is to see us do a sort of unified summer reading program, as we both do. One, and we you know, summer reading programs have themes and we use different themes, which confuses everyone, especially if you think about, you know, our major media outlet. Seattle Times, of course, often has coverage about the Seattle Public Library reading program, and our patrons are reading that and get confused about what that means and that doesn't match with what they have. So looking at how we can sort of unify that so that at least we're using common language, we're operating at the same time that people can can more seamlessly use our services. So we're continuing to grow that and will continue to do so. And one other thank you for that. I'm sorry, Mr. President. No problem. A couple of years ago, there was a concern raised from a labor relations perspective about the custodians contract with the King County Library System. What is the status of that and what kind of work has the library system done to make sure we treat all workers with a high degree of respect and also help lift them up by paying a living wage? Exactly. So we have ended that contract early and are in the process of putting out an RFP. We've tightened up the language in the RFP that will remove that loophole that allowed the current contract award to be made so that it is a contract that is available to everyone that meets both the letter of the law as well as the spirit of the law. And that RFP, I think, actually went out today, probably about a month process before we have a contract award to announce. Thank you very much. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Is it looking through your book that you gave us? Thank you for that, for doing that and looking at one of the libraries and how exciting it is in this picture to be able to sit in really comfortable furniture and look at the beautiful windows and be able to read and sort of like a room and thinking this might be the. Rent. In the Renton library. Okay. It looks very similar to what a library's in my district. But on the flip side of where the things are really, really, really beautiful. So thank you for that. So that library has received national awards. Cedar. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is beautiful. And I got to tell you that the full city one looks at some beautiful and so does the carnation. When look out on some really beautiful areas to see, it looks a lot the same where you can just going to go out. Nice spaces to sit and enjoy it and I think you know the Renton Library if I can just add you know, I alluded earlier to some of our community challenges and Renton was certainly one where the plan was to rebuild the library in a different location instead of this space over the river and the community for it , and rightfully so. And that library is as stunning and kind of full service and great recognition to the community for that. As Rob said, the library has won numerous awards, including the American Institute of Architects, Library of the Year Award for Library Renovation Project. So it's wonderful to have our buildings recognized, but it's even more wonderful when that work came directly from the community fighting to keep their library. And I remember the the ballot measures, I remember the discussions, I remember the emails and more emails. So thank you for all your hard work and that it is really, really beautiful. If we were to put together a group of people from the 12th and 10th floor that would like to be taught about all the different things on our computers and such. Could we arrange something like that? Absolutely. Okay. I think we may organize something like that over the holidays. Yeah. We'd be glad to have a staff member can come meet here if we can just find a space. If we have a space here that we could do, that. We will get you. That will also sign people up, still nominate people and get a general idea of what questions they. And if I could also tell you just because it might be of interest to you, we did just a couple of weeks ago when and renew the contract for service that we provide to the Youth Service Center here in Seattle. So, you know, you may not know that there's a library and the youth service center, quite a nice library that has historically been operated by King County Library System, even though it's here in Seattle. And they put that out to bid to see make sure we were doing a good job, but also just to see if there were other ways of providing service and we won the bid and are in the process of renewing the contract now. So we'll continue that service. And we're also working with, as they look to build the new detention center that will have a new library that we work with them to build on that space as well. Excellent. I didn't realize that came out now. Well, please. In the adult divisions of the jail system there. A year ago, there was a contract with the library. And for a number of unavoidable reasons, we don't have that any longer. And I just want to encourage you, as I encourage the jail director to continue having discussions about when and if that might be something we could renew, because having reading materials for folks who are in the facilities I just think is really good all the way around for a number of reasons. And the jail does a pretty good job of trying to maintain a volunteer free book drive, but they just don't have the expertize and the the resources that you all have. So I understand that there was a financial challenge there, that there's nothing we can really do about it, that as if we're rolling in money now. But I just want to encourage us to continue to look for opportunities to expand that service. And I thank you very much for what you're doing at the juvenile division. Thanks. Thank you. I will be calling. You said six or seven things that I want to pick your brain on on that very same topic. So thank you so much for all you do and from the great asset you were in our community. Thank you all. Thank you. And we will see you before next year because we have a lot of questions. And I. I love my TEDTalks, but there are some books I'd like to hear, too. All right. So now we're going to move on to three items that are our roads department. So we will be looking at proposed ordinance 2016, 404 11 and 401. So this cable you come up and then also our roads, people, if you want to come on up too, that would be great. All three of you can come on up this case. Please take it away. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will try not to contact you. I'm afraid I have a call today. I'm Lisa K Council staff. Today I'm talking about item 8/1, which is proposed ordinance 2016 zero 400, which is an update of Title 14 of the King County Code. I'm joined today with by the services director, Brenda Bauer, Deputy Director Jay Osborne and the county road engineer Rick Braider. My staff report begins on page 249 of your packet. There's also additional information that the executive provided, additional background information beginning on page 425 of your packet. Today's update is going to include or that I'm sorry, the update that will be brought to the course of at least two meetings is going to cover most policy and technical changes. Today, I'll be going over the policy changes as described on tables one and two on pages 252. 252 of your packet staff analysis is ongoing with respect to some of the changes to the road vacation provisions in Table two. And I'll be bringing you some of that information back to you at your November 7th meeting. Also at November 7th, I'll describe changes to the road design and construction standards that will be adopted by this ordinance and a striking amendment that has been developed by legal counsel. Your legal counsel in consultation with the panel. There are a couple of other things that are relevant to those Title 14 update that you'll be other types of legislation that you'll be seeing over the next weeks and months. Specifically early next year, you'll be seeing updates on chapters of Title 14 that deal with rights of way, the permit system for county property utilities on county right away, wireless communication facilities and utilities on county properties. Also you have legislation before you now. And as an update to King County Chapter 14 or Code Chapter 1470, which is the Transportation Concurrency Management Program that's been referred to this committee of the hall. You also have an update to County Code Chapter 1456, which is the NON-MOTORIZED program, and that will be before council in the context of the comprehensive plan. UPDATE Finally today, as item ten, you have proposed Ordinance 2016 0401, which moves a section of Title 14 to Title 28 having to do with. The commute trip reduction. So with all that, I'll come back now to table one on page 250 of your packet. These markets, these modifications would make policy changes. I said, as I said, to Title 14, and they're grouped in your staff in the staff report in four categories. Just for ease of review. There are two administrative changes. Three changes having to do with repealing provisions. Two provisions that establish new authority and four that modify regulations. Are we good to go on this? No, not really. So I'm the first one. So it's going to delete the requirement for the directors annual report. But the WEC says we have to have annual bridge reports. So if we have to do a bridge report, it seems to me that we should have a comprehensive report. So why are we deleting the annual report? If I can say that we will be what? I will be walking through each one of these with you, each one of the proposed changes. So when next time, as we speak. Now. Okay. All right. I will turn to Director Bauer to speak to the deletion of the annual report, as you said, which is the first administrative change. We've always submitted an annual bridge report to the council. And what were one of the things we were trying to do was to get rid of conflicts or repetition with state law. So where there is a state law that requires us to do something, then we you often get out of sync over time if you have a separate and close provision in county code. So is there something we can put in the county code that says that when you submit the state report that you submitted to us on the council so that that's what the state report does. Yes. Okay. All right. So if that's what we're doing, why are we changing this? Then what? Over time, a lot of what happened was that the provisions of state law were written also in county code. And to clean up the code because they get out of sync just even by a few words over time. You know, a good practice is not to repeat what's already in state law. In county code. And so I'm in the process of being in Title 14 right now. So I will have some other questions besides what's in here. But I'm not all the way done yet, so I'll say that. Go ahead. Okay, then the next administrative change is shifting responsibility for assessing the cost of sidewalk repair and reconstruction from the council to the King County DOT. Director, the the theory here the concept here was that you have all of the subject matter expertize contained at the at the departmental level and it provides an efficient way of centralizing that authorization. And I would ask Director Bower if she has anything to add to that. No. I think that the best practice for that sort of technical assessment is at the department level, rather than asking the council to assess costs on a repair project. Yes. Since that's not in our bailiwick, that would be good. Go ahead. Okay. Moving on to the repealed provisions. The first one is a provision that directs. It's an entire section speaking to install installation of public benches in the county right away. Actually, there are no public benches or any benches in the public rights of way, and this provision runs contrary to the desire to keep a clear zone area. So this would be stricken in the proposed update. So why do we ever think we were going to have benches in the right away? What was the thinking behind that? What was the year that that was from J. So I'm Jay Osborne, deputy director at ROADS. That legislation was from 1945, and there were issues with benches asking people to stop here, warning that there were concerns in the road going ahead. We no longer have benches and have not had benches in the right away for quite a while. So this is the first code clean up since 1994 at the Metro merger. So we're also going through and getting rid of some unused provisions like that one. Okay. So the horse and buggy time is a little different. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. Moving to the next one is actually deleting Section 14.38 of the King County Code, which allows for road closures and openings by petition. And this action would then repeal that section. As I said, the according to the road service staff, the provisions have never been used and that closing a road doesn't absolve the county of any of the maintenance responsibilities or toward liability. Moving to the next item. This would delete the mitigation payment system. The system right now is not generating significant revenue due to low development activity of the small. This the direct impacts would still be addressed through the super process and it repealing the system wouldn't affect the concurrency program or intersection standards. Okay. Questions. Keep going. Okay. The next to deal with or to establish new authority on page 251 emergency permits. This would be providing authority for the county road engineer to issue special use permit during disasters. When you close some of the roads, you're still going to need to be able to get emergency provisions and some emergency vehicles , possibly school busses across the roads. And this would allow the county road engineer specifically to do that. So being that we have some bridges that are at their weight bearing capacity, I'm really wanting to make sure that you have enough authority for any emergency. So as we go forward, maybe you and I are flying can talk about are there any other emergency powers that you need? And I had a conversation with somebody the other day about an emergency issue and a bridge, so we can talk about that offline. And I'd also like to know, Brenda, what your emergency powers are, too. Are they all the road engineer? My emergency powers are to tell the county road engineer what to do. All right, that's good. Okay. So should he be on a vacation? Which probably won't happen. But if you were on a vacation out of the country, do you have the ability to do everything that he has to do? And if you're on a vacation, does he have the ability to share back and forth that? So whenever the county road engineer is unavailable, we have an acting county road engineer, so he takes vacation, he's ill, whatever. We have another someone who has an engineering degree, a P license that I do not have who can help us make those technical decisions. But as is true with all of our organizations, we have the ability to act in the absence of one person. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay. Okay. We'll move now on to the regulations that have been. I'm sorry, one more of the new authority again. This is enforcement entitled 14. It's on page 251. And it authorizes the county road engineer to enforce specific sections and subsections of this. Previously, the existing language gave this authority to the King County D.A., director and to the sheriff. And so this would give the authority to the county road engineer, the sheriff subsections relating to road closures, road restrictions, load limiting bridges, standards, road vacations and road variances. Okay. So the sheriff still has the same authority had before to. Yes. Okay. So offline on those two subsections, load limiting bridges. I'm very concerned about that and also road vacations. So those two are ones I'd like to know more about later. Okay. Okay. Moving on to the modified regulations. This is on page 251 of your staff report. Standards for utility for poles have been broadened to apply to every utility pole and other utility structure, not to just every new placement and every planned replacement. Okay. So that's a big deal. And so I think the companies and I think this is the one that there was a recent court ruling on, this is something that allows us to address the issues with clear zone that we did our presentation to you recently. Okay. So everybody that a law degree up here needs to know about that. So if you don't, we can be briefed anyway. Okay. So that's a big deal. All right. Go ahead. Okay, then the next modified regulation is for sidewalk repair and responsibility. This define this is section 14.50 2.020 of the county code and the new. The proposed changes would define the procedures to the floor. Notice to property owners. It again provides provisions for appeal and for the director to assess the cost of the repair or the reconstruction on a sidewalk that's been damaged or not maintained against. And so the costs would be assessed against the abutting property owner there is. And as with the existing language, the lean would be capped at 25% of the assessed value of the abutting property. So one of the things I'd like to know about is how do you repair site? I mean, how do you maintain a sidewalk? I sweep it. I have no idea how else to do. And over time, the cement begins to become what it powdery. So do you want me to get out with my. No. This really has to do with where the essentially property owners have damaged the sidewalk as a result of their tree roots. Or. Other instrumentality on their property that resulted in damage to public infrastructure. Okay. And that's another thing I want to talk about is trees in the sidewalks, because they plant these trees and I know we have a list of trees, but they plant these trees with these huge roots and then they all come up and they try to walk around. And it's very dangerous, especially for seniors or people trying to use canes or crutches. So. Okay, we'll talk about that later, too. All right. Okay. Okay. The next one is planning street maintenance. And this language just specifies that plants are prohibited in the temperate clear zone unless there is a curb present. Okay. The next item on page 251 also is intersection standards. And this language makes clear that there will be no administrative fee charged to review intersection standards and that any traffic study that is required would be paid for by the owner of the proposed development and the county staff would be reviewing those studies as they came in . Okay. So that completes the policy issues with respect. With the exception of the Road Vacation Authority section, we're still working with legal staff and roads in our analysis on that. The one issue I would bring to your attention is that the proposed changes would enable the County Council to proactively initiate a proposed road vacation. Currently, those need to be done via petition. That petition authority would remain, but the Council would also be able to initiate it and would be able to initiate on behalf of the executive. Yes. As you're working on that, I believe state law has been updated recently, but at least under our old system, a fluke could occur in terms of the valuation of our big kid and right away where you'd have your classes, I think three class era, but then you'd look to the assessed value of the parcels on either side . So say you had a 60 foot ride away and you were going to vacate it by 30 feet, going to each of the abutting property owners. If you had low valued land, say on one side, it could be rural or could be underdeveloped or for whatever reason could be low by land. And so you had a subdivision on the other side which is higher valued land. You would bless you, Councilmember Lambert, if you could result in paying a multiple for the very same property on one side of the market and right away of what you would require the money to pay on the other side. And it was it just made no sense. I word you can be paid $100 a square foot for land that was next to $5 a square foot. And I hope that we can in these reforms, if the state law doesn't do it, get to a spot. I see it's adding more flexibility to get to a spot where we have some consistency of coherency in that little fluke of our population that. That part of the code is completely gone in the revised version. And we do have a lot more flexibility in state law and we are taking advantage of that in our proposal to allow the county to essentially right size its right of way to the right of way that. Is actually used by the public and. Valuable to the public and kind of. Remove some of the. Liability that the county carries. Most of this right away we're vacating by virtue of the vacation requirements is not a value to us and is of limited value to the adjacent property owners. Typically we carry tremendous liability for it, but we don't get property tax, we don't get and we're often doing work to keep it from being dangerous to the public. So trees grow in impacted trees, what have you. But we've got a system where it might cost about one issue of diverge of. Article. One. And the second issue is just I think it's in here to the extent we can incentivize an adjoining property to pick it up, even though they may not want truly they wouldn't want to pay a lot of value for it, but they might pay something. It gets on the tax rolls, it takes it off of our books. But if there's a burden, not a burden, but a barrier because of the high price that doesn't match the added value, they just won't do it. And it stays on our books in something more useful. I'm interested in the work there to get values correct. Thank you. Okay. That completes my report on the Title 14 update. As I said next, I believe at your November 7th meeting, I would be coming back with additional analysis of the road vacation section of the road standards updates, and a striking amendment that your legal counsel has prepared with appeal. Okay, great. Thank you. All right. Thank you for all this. And I want to move on to the next one, number nine, which is 2016 411. Thank you, Madam Chair. Item nine on your list, Coastal Counsel Staff. Item nine on your agenda is approval of the quarterly report from the Road Services Division on emergent needs and unanticipated project costs. My staff report begins on page 435 of your packet. This is the sixth of seven quarterly reports required by a budget proviso that the proviso had two objectives. First, to provide closure, policy oversight of road services expenditures in light of a budgeting shift from specific project investments, i.e. individual capital projects to a program based capital project or capital budget that pooled funds for common purposes. And second, to help monitor whether expenditures from this pool of funds track with Council's policy objectives set forth in the strategic plan update. This the pardon me? There are two minor amend or two transfers. The quick response transferred $580,000 for two projects. And the. Pardon me. Let me just get to my page here. The first was $500,000 transferred to the Doctrine Road Southwest Erosion Project, and the second was $80,000 to the Bredell Over Crossing Repair Project on the Kent Black Diamond Road. Emergent need transfer was just a $21 transfer to close out the Southwest Roxbury Project. For a budget record reconciliation. And that completes my staff report manager. So on the quick response, how are we doing on making sure that we are able to go out when there's an emergency and do a quick response? Jay Osborne, Deputy Director. So with the quick response program we've been funding, as you've seen in these quarterly reports that have come before you, things that have arisen or damage to the road system that needs to be fixed. The Doctor and seawall is one that's underway currently, as is the very day over crossing, which is almost complete. You'll see in the next quarterly report there was a lot of landslides on Vachon. So you'll see a number of transfers for additional projects on based on the amount of money that we have in the budget. We at this point aren't expecting to carry over a huge sum into the next biennium. We have about 3 million left unexpended going into this stormy weekend, which turned out to not need huge amounts of money. Thank goodness. In that in that. So. Okay. I'm also looking at our preservation money and it's greatly concerning that there's 9 million in 2013, but only 7 million in 2015. So we've had a $2 million, 17% reduction. And so that's that's an issue. Where do we where does that put us. In the budget? That's before you. You'll see, we just finished how high? Our high accident location safety report. So there are a number of safety projects that are funded in there. There is a slight uptick in the amount of preservation we're able to do because our revenues have increased slightly going into the coming biennium. But there are no bridge projects or any standalone preservation projects. We're concentrating primarily on pavement preservation and drainage work came the budget proposal. So the idea you don't have a stand on preservation and also there's no money going into bridges is of great concern to me. And we asked the Federal Government to go back to separating their roads money from their bridge money. Do you know in the latest, did they do that or is bridge money now still in with the roads money? There is a separate amount of bridge money that comes down through the state. But part of what you're referencing in the Federal Highway Trust, this House of Representatives has not acted on that legislation at this point. Okay. So when we go back early next year, hopefully they'll have acted on it, but not having it. For me, it's a lack of transparency. We know how many bridges we have. We have 181, is that correct? Under 81 bridges, we know what state of repair disrepair they're in. And the federal government should be giving us a proportional share of that each year. And the fact that they're not is really disconcerting. So then on table two, Miller Bridge replacement, 2.5 million. That was taken up in the 2013 a.S.A.P. Where's that now? Is it just non-existent or is it still being tracked that that was taken out so that if we ever had money, we can go back to that. That project that was in there initially was scheduled to be funded by FEMA. Right. But as you know, FEMA had declined to fund the repair work of that bridge in there. We do have some road end proposals and some of the FEMA adjustments in that area that have been offered up. But we still do not have funding to reconnect that bridge. So just for everybody to know what he said is absolutely correct. But the problem that has been exacerbated is that that is a train stop. And there used to be three ways in and out of Skye Comet, and the train usually covers two of them. And that was fine because you always had the third, but because this is out, there is no third. And so we have had four times now where skirmish has been cut off and one time it was cut off for four and a half hours. Nobody could get in, nobody could get up. And that is not acceptable and is very dangerous. So I am working with our federal legislators on dealing with FEMA on this. So I just want you to flag it that it is still very much in my mind and something that I'm not happy about the federal government not stepping up. I think they should have. So. Okay, so that's an issue we need to still keep working with. Okay. Anything else? Madam Chair, would you like to take action on that today? I would, so let's see. Council member would you be willing to put number nine? This is four for eight, is that correct? I mean, this is 4041121201110. That is number nine. Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. Look at the wrong number for one one. Just looking at the page number. Sorry. That doesn't mean you can remove it. I mean, if we give it. You passed recommendation to motion 2016 for 11. Great question. Okay. Clerk, will you please call for the vote? Thank you, Madam Chair. Council Member. Banducci Council Member Dumbass I Council Member Done. By. Council Member Gossett II. Councilmember Colwell IV Council Member McDermott. But. Council Member of the Grove Council member run right there. Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the vote is ADA is no nos and council member van right there. Excuse. Okay. I think that we really don't need to talk about this probably at the full council unless you want to. I was thinking consent. Okay. Okay. With consent for this. Okay. Does it need to be expedited or not? No. Okay. So regular and concert calendar. And we will continue to work on all the many issues that all of that contains. It's heartbreaking. Okay. So that takes us on to the next ordinance. Thousand 16 0401. This one will be very quick. Madam Chair, this is item ten list Lisa K Council Staff. Item ten on your agenda is proposed ordinance 2a160401. My staff report begins on page 449 of your packet. This ordinance would simply move to consolidate sections of the county code that address the Commute Troop Reduction Act into Title 28, which is metropolitan functions. So the existing county code, Chapter 14.60 on computer production would go into a new chapter in Title 28. Okay. And there are no structural changes or policy changes. I just feel really moving it so that it will be more consistent. Yes, ma'am. And because we haven't done since 1994 and it's about time. All right. So that sounds like an interesting thing. Any questions? It is. Would you like to do that? Do pass recommendation on proposed ordinance 1016 0401. Thank you. Any questions? Okay, quick, could you please call for the vote? Thank you, Madam Chair. Council member. Belushi I council member themselves. Council member done by Council Member Gossett II Councilmember Caldwell I. Councilmember McDermott. Grove. House Member of the Grove Councilmember run right down. Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the vote is either none of the members on right are excused. Thank you. I think we can also put that on consent on regular calendar. So that will be good and we will continue to work on the other off line as we prepare for more things. And hopefully we will not end up with needing a pogo stick to get over our roads. Thank you so much for being with us today. Okay. Our last item is a great item also, and this is a ordinance 2016 0431 is an ordinance establishing a task force on labor trafficking and economic exploitation and requiring a report with recommendations on the steps the county can take in addressing systematic issues related to the things. This was brought to us by our sponsor today that represented representative sorry Council Caldwell and the whole history there. And Mr. Curry, would you begin the briefing? Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm Clifton Curry of Council Staff. Our materials today begin on page 473 of your packet with the staff report. In addition, what's been passed out prior to the meeting is a PowerPoint presentation related to labor trafficking and also a very good summary of all of the landmark Washington State accomplishments to prevent human trafficking . So it gives a good legislative history. And rather than spending a lot of time on the history, the the count, the state of Washington and the King County Council have shown a significant interest in issues related to human trafficking and recognizing that here are King County in the Pacific Northwest is a gateway to most of the rest of the world. We have very high population of immigrants moving through this area. Trade is regular. We have very much access between freeways, ports, one of the largest airports in the Pacific Northwest that we are can be seen as a hub for trafficking. The council, in following, along with the state legislature and the federal government, have recognized the seriousness of human trafficking and. Have taken a significant number of actions. Again. I point you to both the summaries and my staff report where there's a discussion of the history of the actions taken here in the Council. However, most of those actions have been directly related to human trafficking as it relates to the commercial sex, sexual exploitation, and especially in the area of sexual exploitation of minors. And the council has done a great deal working in that area, as have the communities in the Pacific Northwest. But one area that hasn't gotten the same level of review, at least at the county level, is human trafficking related to labor. And that's when individuals are. Well, I'm going to read the definition here. Victims of human trafficking include children who are involved in commercial sex trade. Adults age 18 or over who are coerced or deceived into commercial sex and anyone forced into different forms of labor or services such as domestic workers held at home or farm workers forced to labor against their will. And human trafficking is a federal agent. It is against the law at the federal level and at the state level with the concentration, primarily looking at the sexual exploitation, especially sexual exploitation of minors. Been very successful and several programs members have had briefings from the prosecutor's office and other programs. However, as the state has looked at labor trafficking and there's a recognition that there's several different options that have never been systematically reviewed in such a way as to look at, not just looking at the traditional providing services to victims and survivors of trafficking, providing education and so on, very similar to what happens in the arena of sexual exploitation. But there are also several policies and other efforts that both governments can take and business can take that have the impact of reducing the the number of people who are involved in labor trafficking, by changing procurement policies, looking at how education is done, the workplace, and looking at different forms of enforcement which has never been done systematically here at the county. This proposed ordinance which begins on has a striking amendment, and the striking amendment basically has been modified to update with a lot more input and so on. And I'll be talking, Madam Chair, to the striking amendment, which begins on 489 of your packet. This amendment would require that the executive convene a task force to assess and address the systematic issue of labor trafficking and economic exploitation in King County. The task force would have a fairly comprehensive membership. The full list is on page 490 of your packet today. The striking amendment would require that the executive for all members except the identified county officials, make the appointments to the task force by January 15, 2017, and that the executive notify the Council at least 30 days prior to appointment of who's being appointed so that you have an opportunity to look at those individuals and groups before the final appointment, which is the way things often happen. The task force would be charged with consulting with county departments, businesses, community groups to determine the effectiveness of the delivery of services to victims and survivors of labor trafficking and and economic exploitation. And have that group make recommendations to improve both the services and the policies within the county to both address in for government sector and for the private sector best practices. The amendment sets April one, 2017, as a deadline for the Task Force Task Force's first meeting, and it actually has an expiration date of June 1st, 2018, for the task force unless the Council takes action to extend that group. The amendment requires that the executive support the efforts of the task force with staffing and neither resources. And the Executive is also required to prepare a report based on the work of the task force. That includes, among a variety of things, a list of governmental agencies that currently interact with potential victims of labor trafficking, an analysis of laws, a review of county ordinances, rules and practices that could be changed. Analysts analysis of how current labor experiment practices leave workers. Verbal identification of existing best practices. An analysis of support services provided to the victims and survivors. And recommendations for strategies to prevent the incidents within the county of labor trafficking and economic exploitation. To improve the delivery of services to victims and survivors. To provide better education for businesses on current domestic and international labor laws. Education for workers of their rights. And to increase community awareness of labor trafficking and economic exploitation. The expectation is the report would also include an implementation plan for any recommendations that could be implemented by the county and a description of how the report's recommendations will align with other regional and local human trafficking efforts. With a recognition that for those task forces and groups, for example, the county's. Commercially Sexually Exploited Minors workgroup, there wouldn't be duplication of effort and there would be a coordination of recommendations. The executives report would be due to the Council in December of 2017. The proposed ordinance, as modified by the striking amendment, would continue the county's work on human and human trafficking and expand that the traditional view of sexual exploitation and move it into the realms of labor trafficking. Following very similar models that the county has used elsewhere to look at not just county wide issues that affect government and labor and local businesses, but also groups in the county such as the Immigrants and Refugees Task Force that have worked with similar groups and individuals. And Madam Chair, if the no questions for me on the striking amendment, there's a panel this morning to talk about the issues related with labor trafficking and the importance of this issue. And if you would like to hear from the panel now and then, I would be available afterwards for discussion related to the striking amendment. So the panel can be come up. That'll be great. I'm sure there'll be some questions first before the panel. I have some questions, too, but we'll start with Councilmember Balducci. I want to start with a bit of a process question, because I have a very large number of questions about this proposal, starting with where's the data and ending with where's the fiscal node, where is the law enforcement community? Where's the executive? This is a very big ask, and I'm really concerned that I don't see any detail behind it at all. So I think having a discussion today about the issue of labor trafficking and the problem I think is a really good start. But I feel like there's steps to go before we're ready to adopt a particular approach. I just want to just lay that out on the table because I didn't hear or see any of my questions answered today. Councilmember Kobus. Madam Chair, if that's all right with you, I could give a little bit about how they find sure they'll be fine working on for a long time to get to this point. I in fact, we began working on this proposal last February here when I started at the County Council the month before, and with the tremendous work on the part of my staff or a Toshihiko Hasegawa, we are here today with, I think, a very solid proposal. And among all that we did to prepare for the day was to meet with community organizations last February and March. I get a considerable amount of feedback in terms of what the needs are, what would be the best ways to address these needs, what the county could do, given the the significant amount of work that had has been done on sex trafficking. We've worked with the prosecutor's office, with the sheriff's office, with many departments and agencies in the executive branch here, including, I'd say, over the last couple of months, every week or every other week, we've been in meetings, we've met with our budget chair and we've really come up with something that we think makes a lot of sense . Now, I'd also like you to keep in mind that the work on human trafficking more generally, but labor trafficking specifically has been going on at the state level for a long time. And in fact, starting in 1995, when three Filipina American women were murdered here at the courthouse. So those were Suzanna Ramrod Blackwell, Phoebe designed and Veronica Loretta and Susanna was eight months pregnant when her husband murdered her self and the other two women who were there to help her here at the courthouse. And it was Emma Kotecki who was here today, who I believe brought the information to Velma, the lawyer, Representative Velma Valeria at the time, and the Filipino community rallied together to make sure that we in the legislature knew and understood what was happening, something called human trafficking, which we didn't know much about at that time. Representative Valeria led the efforts in the legislature, and we also have with us current State Senator Bob Hasegawa, who this year had legislation of his past that dealt with labor trafficking terms being added and. A lot. There have been about 40 laws enacted in our state where the number one state in the country. But we have a lot more to do, and mainly that has to do with labor trafficking. The public is more aware of sex trafficking also very, very important. I would appreciate that we hear the panel. And if you can accept that a whole lot of background work has been done on this and we are, of course, continuing to look at what the fiscal issues are, the challenges. But we're thinking about on the order of $25,000 to get this taskforce implemented. And we'll let the panel talk. Thank you. Well, Councilmember. And I'm sorry to basically want to say something. Thank you. And I apologize for jumping in, but I have to go due to our conflict. And I'm very sad because I want to hear this panel. Then I will watch it later. I'm pleased to join as a co-sponsor with Councilmember Cowell's of the legislation, and I have at times participated in the existing Csac task force here , which is oriented and aimed at kind of children in this issue area. Before I came to the council, I was somewhat active with the American Bar Association, and they have done really tremendous amount of work in this area and have a number of recommendations, which I hope as we invest in this work here at the county, we will look at one of which is maybe a shift away from the focus on criminalization, which we should do, but more to support of victims. And I think that that will be a place that the county can play an important role in giving the kinds of services that we do here in addition to the criminal prosecutorial work . But I wanted to just let you know that I'm sorry. I have to go. I really appreciate you being here. I think this is very good work. I think it could integrate well with our new Office of Immigrants and Refugees. And there is a proposal in the budget to have a staffer there which might be able to assist with some of this work. And I'm excited that hopefully this will pass out and I'll certainly be supporting it. But I'm excited to see the work that this task force of its convening does in terms of its recommendations and then how the county can carry out on a local role. Our support services for the city of Seattle and King County, as you all know, is, I think one of the top five cities in the country because of our early report status, at least it used to be, and some of the work we were doing at the ABA. And so this is very important work and I'm happy to support Councilmember Caldwell's leadership on it and I appreciate your being here. So a couple of things before we get started. On line 23, the three people were murdered. And so at the King County Courthouse, I didn't think that was human trafficking. I thought that was a domestic violence case. Cliff. Now you want to answer that? Somebody says you know the answer to that. Actually, initially started we also viewed it initially as a domestic violence case. But when we look at the issue of migrant brides, it had the definition of human trafficking where they're forced out of their country because there are no economic opportunities for them. They are brought here thinking that there are going to be economic opportunities. And then there was a study that was done at the University of Washington, which. Called the issue of these migrant brides or mail order bride as a bride trafficking. Okay. So last time we were told certain terms are pejorative and certain terms aren't. Yes. So is bride trafficking, except it is not accepted. What is the correct terminology? Correct terminology that we are currently using as migrant brides. Migrant brides. Okay. Migrant marriages. Okay. Is that as explicit as saying the other terms of the term seem like it's a little bit more so says the flavor of this is not a good idea. Or migrant brides doesn't sound quite as intense. Anyway. All right. Whatever the right word is. I was just surprised to see that in here. That that was that. And then I like to say that I was in the legislature when I'm a first brought this to us in the late nineties and we're like, What? What is this? So I'd like to thank you for your leadership on this all these years. It's great. Thank you. So that. Would you like to begin? Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Velma Gloria and members of that council. Thank you for hearing this particular legislation. I wanted to particularly say thank you to council member Kimiko Wells for her leadership and for her staff to pursue this issue. When we first introduced the Bill of Human Trafficking or to make human trafficking a crime on the state level, it was with the intention of having it be more inclusive. It wasn't just to study or to address the issue of sex trafficking, but to also include labor. And now, as I travel the world, it would hopefully include organ trafficking under the international trade agreements. What we have done, actually, it's commodify human beings so that human trafficking has not become part of the globalization process. This ordinance will allow us to take a look and play an important role in studying and looking at the issue of labor trafficking and economic exploitation and hopefully look forward to possible solutions. The issue of funding this task force. I hope that the Council will find some money, $25,000. I don't think it's that great of a request to get the task force started. And we really encourage that. You support this ordinance. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Chair and council member. I would like to thank everybody that Velma did bring this excellent PowerPoint. It's not time to have it shown, unfortunately, but I think I would encourage you to take a look at it. Thank you. Thank you for reminding me. And there's also another sheet of the member state accomplishments, too, that goes back o 2000 to that's here for the record, too. Also, I want to point out, because they know, as we've discussed this many times, we are one of the number one states. Partly because we are on the circuit or on the West Coast, but also because we are very aware of this. And so when we have had concerted efforts of doing targeted arrests, we've had a lot of them because our police are doing such a good job of targeting. So I know the last time we talked about this that several different people were concerned that it made them sound bad as opposed to the fact that they're really on top of this and doing a good job. So we're glad they're making a lot of arrests. We just wish that there weren't arrests to be made, which is a little different. Would you like to see for us? Yes, thank you. And my name is John White. And I want to echo from a representative on The Voice gratitude for hearing this issue today. And I'm here to speak on behalf of Doctors Sutapa Basu at the Women's Center at University of Washington. Human trafficking, specifically, labor trafficking, is a prominent human rights abuse that touches all corners of our world, including the people in this room. The International Labor Organization estimates that 21 million people are victims of forced labor around the globe. Over 75% of them are victims of labor trafficking and are exploited in industries such as agriculture, construction, domestic service, fishing, manufacturing and more. Living in a global economy means that decisions we make here at a local level impact workers in King County, but also around the world. The 2013 Rana Plaza disaster, where nearly 1200 people died from a building collapse, included workers making garments for big brands that do business in King County. Locally procured goods are also at risk, for example, in the Bangladesh tasering fashion factory fire that killed 112 workers. The New York Times traced their supply chains back to Apparel Commission to the U.S. military, given the widespread worker exploitation worldwide and the potential connection to our local economy. We in King County can move towards preventing instances of labor trafficking and economic exploitation by examining our labor and procurement practices and identify areas that are vulnerable. For example, manufacturing of goods and services such as apparel and electronics, along with our construction workforce, are areas known to be prone to labor trafficking. And in 2015, 60% of the King County spending went to goods and services and 12% to construction. Government and public agencies have tremendous power in prevention, particularly through procurement. Our preliminary research through our preliminary research, we have learned that there are many cities, counties and states that have passed and implemented various ethical sourcing and sweat free ordinances that we can unpack and learn from. This task force will allow our county to take leadership on this issue and look at our own procurement practices and vendor supply chains and engage our community to collaboratively identify and support meaningful action items to take a stance against labor trafficking. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for. My name is Dr. Mar Bretman with businesses ending slavery and trafficking. And thank you so much, Councilmember Caldwell's, for proposing this legislation. And thank you for hearing us today. I am here to support the founding of a task force. We know that labor trafficking not only is being driven by products and services that we're buying overseas, we also know that it's happening here in Washington State. We don't yet know the prevalence or scope of what's happening in Washington state. And I think that's one of the things that this task force needs to work on and help us to understand better. But according to recent research, the prevalence could be quite high. A study out of San Diego focused on one small population of undocumented Spanish speaking immigrants. We know that documented Spanish speaking, documented immigrants in Washington state are also subject to labor trafficking. But in that specific population studied in San Diego, they found that one half experienced some form of employment violation. 27% of those classified as trafficking violations. 15% of workers experienced sexual abuse, physical abuse and or threats. 20% experienced deprivation, including things like food deprivation, sleep deprivation. And there were also several were forbidden to leave their leave their place of work. 24% were denied pay. The top industries in which this happened were construction, cleaning, landscaping, food processing in restaurants and manufacturing. So in King County, which seeks justice and equity for all people, we need to understand what is happening in our county to our most vulnerable populations and how we can uphold the rights of those populations. So I am very supportive of founding this task force because we do need to begin working on this issue as a county. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, I want to apologize. I do have to leave to go to another meeting. And I really am sorry. I wish this meeting had gone faster and I could have listened to everything. And as I said at the beginning, I'm learning about this issue. Our report just didn't have any real data behind it. It had a lot of generic general statements in it. It's a very large task force. There are seven county departments that are asked to participate in a short period of time. I'm concerned about the cost. I'm not at all unsupportive. I'm very supportive. I understand that there's an issue. I understand our status as a port city makes us particularly susceptible to this kind of this kind of problem. And there's been a lot of effort, and I and I don't want to in any way send a message that it's not an important issue to address. I want to understand what exactly it is we're proposing to do and whether this is the best approach to do it. I also, by the way, am very, very appreciative of Councilmember Caldwell's efforts and her comments. I really look forward to learning more about what she has learned because, again, it is not here today. This is called a new to me. So I'm hoping that we can have this back one more time for a little bit more information. That's all I'm asking. And I, too, will go back and watch the the playback of everybody else's comments that I won't be able to stay to here today. Thank you for your report, Madam Chair. Just. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Member. I appreciate your remarks a lot, but I think what you're doing is really pointing out to the need for creation of this task force. We do not have all the data that are needed where King County. King County is the economic engine of the state of Washington versus Puget Sound. But talking with the prosecutors and sheriff's office, I worked on this for a long time. There is ample information that trafficking takes place here. Labor trafficking is not as visible to people as the sex trafficking, but it is present, there's no doubt about that . But what one of the main reasons we want to have this taskforce is to be able to determine what the incidence and the prevalence are. So thanks. Thank you very much. Would you like to begin? Sure. Hi, I'm Nicole Valastro King, and I'm the executive director of the Fair Work Center based in Seattle, but also King County. And I just want to echo all of the incredible words said before me and the leadership of the people talking before us. I actually didn't come to this work thinking about trafficking. I came to this work thinking about wages and workers. And, you know, I sat on the Seattle Task Force for the $15 minimum wage campaign. And during that time, it became abundantly clear that we needed more resources for workers when their rights are violated. I had a number of people come to me and say, You know, Fifteen's great, but I'm not getting minimum wage right now. And so we're like, Oh, well, there's a real need for community supported enforcement. And so we founded the Fair Work Center to train workers about their rights at work and then also provide legal services. And now we're one of the only part of the King County Bar Association, the only neighborhood clinic that is devoted to employment services, even though at the state level, similarly, a civil legal aid study done by the Supreme Court showed that employment issues is one of the top five issues that people in our state have. That's a problem that people in our state are facing, and it's not one of the top five services available to them. So there's a really big need for services for workers. Anyway, we're doing this, we're training workers about their rights and then all of a sudden we get more and more people who've been trafficked coming in. And, you know, we were just like, we just wanted to make sure you were getting paid the right wage. And what we're finding is that there's such a strong relationship between labor trafficking and workplaces that violate other rights. So if they violate health, health and safety code and then also are violating minimum wage, often there's an element of coercion that happens for the people we serve. They're told, you know, well, if you report us, we're going to report you to ICE. Or if you report us, you know, like I actually we had a worker come in whose employer threatened to murder her child if they're reporting them. So it's it sounds like over the top. But if you recently moved to this country, you don't have a network or a safety net to support you. It's something that's really real and happens. And I so support this task force because, you know, we came at it from another angle and we're finding that it's such a bigger problem than we could have ever imagined. Thank you. So thank you. Is there a phone number that people could call? I'm sorry. I didn't see you there. Did you disappear or you're not? I'm. I'm so sorry. Your angle. I didn't see you at all, so please proceed. And I'm happy to answer that question as well. So my name is Robert Pizer, and I'm the executive director of Seattle Against Slavery. I just want to echo the background and like work that's been done on this issue for nearly 20 years now, looking broadly at the issue of human trafficking, just to put some specific examples to what this looks like in King County in the past few years, we had a 14 year old who was brought into this country with the promise of education, but instead in Kent and Federal Way was forced to work in a factory. She was making pastries and chocolates that went out in restaurants and grocery stores, and she wasn't given any wages. She was put under threat of violence and forced debt on her and her family and spent years in that environment, as well as cleaning the house of the people who she was being trafficked by. We had a woman who was a mother who was threatened with the murder of her children if she did not take care of the house and the children of King County residents. And she was in that situation for years. We had a South Asian man who was working in a restaurant and he was told he would be deported. And what we know from the Tacoma detention center is that we have trafficking victims and survivors who are being. Report it. Who have been residents of King County. Before there was commercial, commercially, sexually exploited children task force. People said, well, how do we know how much of this is really going on? We don't have the numbers and we don't have the data. But two years into that process, we have the data on hundreds of victims and survivors. We have convictions of hundreds of men who have been trying to buy children for sex. And I think what we see is that the survivors of human trafficking, the foreign nationals in Washington state, there's more labor trafficking survivors attempting to access services than sex trafficking survivors among foreign nationals. So even though we don't have the numbers at this point, task forces like the one that's proposed in this legislation are key. They are the point where all of these community stakeholders come together, where we make decisions about what public awareness do we need to be doing and what's effective. What services need to be available to survivors of trafficking. And what training for King County employees needs to happen? Because right now the city of Seattle is getting training for their employees on how to identify labor trafficking. And the 13,000 employees of King County aren't getting that same training. So I think this task force has a tremendous opportunity to really reshape what it looks like for people who might be at risk of labor trafficking in King County and what the rest of the state and the country needs to do about the issue of labor trafficking and the number. If someone were identified as being a labor trafficking victim or survivor who needed services is 8883737888. And that will connect them directly with both law enforcement and service providers here in King County and around the state. Okay. So you said it in a really good way for us to remember. It's eight, eight, eight on both ends. And then in the middle is 3737. Okay. So 883737888. So you don't have to be identified. You can identify yourself. And even if you have concerns about what's happening to me, they could call me or a friend. Or if you're a service provider, who has someone come in who tells you a story and you say, I don't know what the services who are are that are available for this person. You can call that number and get technical assistance. Okay, great. And then one of the other things that would be good to have, as we talked about this years ago, and I don't know if we ever got it finished, but we asked to get information not only on what businesses can do, but what can we as a citizen do. And one of the things they told me was when I go get my nails done, look at the picture on the wall with the license and see if that picture matches that person or the description matches the person that's actually doing this so that we can see whether or not. So suggestions like that that all of us can do, I think are really important. So because the time I think what we're going to do is ask for some more things. Cliff, where you find out from Seattle what their training is to see if we can borrow. And we also put up a study that we did two, three, four years ago and find out where we are on that study. And then I think that the executive has put literally millions of dollars new into ESG. So out of that millions of dollars, I'm sure we can find 20,000. So that's not the part that's bothering me at all. So I would also like to know what the average age of the person being trafficked is so that maybe we can look at some basic manifestos for kids money to see if any of those would qualify. And then we'll carry this to another meeting and make sure all that members have the information they need. But I think the sheriff and the prosecutor should be here also and the other groups that are impacted with doing this to see what their timeframes are. So we will get you a date. It will be either end of November, beginning of December, but we'll get you a date before the end of the year and we'll have all that information. Councilmember Thank you, Madam Chair. I might also suggest that we. Mr. CURRY We do some work to compare this proposal to work that has been done in the past, and I'm not sure whether it's continuing INS sexual exploitation in sport through the sheriff's. Department as well. That would be very helpful to know and know that and then. Make sure that. We're not duplicating. And everything is complementary. Not duplicating or that we don't come up with the same outcomes that we had in the last report. You know, let's find out where we got in the last report and make sure that all those things are happening, too. So, yes, Councilman Gomez, for clarification, very much appreciate your holding this briefing. Are you saying for late November, early December, to come back to the Senate to revisit this proposal? Jordan in Spain should be prepared to vote for it. Terrific. And I would again like to acknowledge that we have Senator Hasegawa here, who has been particularly involved with these related issues of wage theft and the underground economy that does exist, that takes away revenue from our tax base when we do not have full reporting and compliance with the law. So thank you all on my behalf for visiting here. And I hope that Dr. Brennan and will be able to share more as well about what she actually does in working with businesses and corporations here in Cancun. She's done amazing work over many years and in a variety of different formats. So we thank you for all your work on this. I did have an opportunity once to see somebody who had been deprived of food for a very long amount of time, and it was the first time I'd ever seen that depth of food deprivation, and it was really frightening to me. So anyway, thank you. It's hard to believe anybody in this county, although that event happened in my very own city. So I know what happens in this county and it should never happen this county. So thank you very much. We will see you again. So thank you so much. And with anything else, this meeting is adjourned.

Output: A MOTION authorizing the execution and delivery of a continuing covenant agreement in connection with the remarketing of the county's Junior Lien Sewer Revenue Bonds, 2015 Series A and B, in the aggregate principal amount of $100,000,000, establishing certain terms of those bonds, all in accordance with Ordinance 18141, as amended by Ordinance _____; and rescinding Motion 14459.