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well good morning and welcome I'm Deanna Robinson slope communication director Bisset Seattle City Council and I'll serve as your moderator for this morning's press conference before we get started I want to ensure everybody on the call is familiar with our ground rules first following councilmember mosquitos presentation and her remarks we'll take a few questions by email or potentially by text or chat second if you haven't done so already and you're not speaking at this moment please go about muting your microphones and without any further ado I'll turn the program over to council members Gaeta councilmember the floor is yours well good morning and thank you so much for being here today I'm Theresa mosquito Seattle City Council member citywide over the past few months my incredible team in the office and I have been working with hundreds of satellites and organizations across our city to crack the proposal we are launching today to jumpstart our economy to stimulate equitable growth to provide immediate kovat relief we worked with our community our community color led organizations large businesses small businesses Labor's labor members immigrant rights organizations housing advocates homelessness advocates transportation and environmental justice advocates to provide this proposal for our city's consideration to respond to the Cova crisis and to really reach our community and invest in our local economy everybody that we've spoken to over the last few months has come to the same conclusion our community is hurting our economy is tanking we cannot wait for the feds or the state to step in we have to act now to help Seattle together this large coalition of stakeholders built this proposal to promote health create jobs and reignite our economy in a more equitable way we realized that kovat did not cause this economic crisis alone it merely ignited an already fragile economy and saw we saw epic amounts of harm caused by the amount of layoffs that have taken place thousands of people were already left behind in our previous economy and now we've seen the consequence of a fragile economy that left far too many behind while promoting only a few prior to this public health emergency we already had a state of emergency we had a declared state of emergency on homelessness or over 11,000 individuals in King County were experiencing homelessness and over 70% of those folks were living unsheltered right here in Seattle we do not have enough housing report after report has said we need more affordable housing and housing all types across our city and region kovat had just exposed the cracks that were already there in an unequal economy but we can jump-start our economy we can jump-start Seattle and do it in an in an equitable way in an inclusive way that ensures that everyone who lives here can participate and share in our growth this ultimately leads to healthier more resilient economies a better sea that supports our businesses as well the proposal that we're announcing today helps respond to the needs due to the Cova crisis this year it maintains essential services so that the city and our working families can have services like child cares parks safe streets libraries core investments that make our communities run it invests deeply in solving our affordable housing and homelessness crisis in the out years and it rebuilds our economy by making sure it works for all Seattle lights we really just don't have the option to wait we are in the midst of the pandemic and in the midst of a pandemic housing and food insecurity is not just a moral crisis it is a public health crisis we are in the midst of a quite a crisis of consciousness as more people demand action from us as they see the consequences of institutionalized racism and we have to acknowledge that black and brown folks are getting hit with higher rates of kovat hospitalizations and deaths coronavirus layoffs disproportionately hurt black and Latino workers for nine and 10 black owned businesses who applied for the federal support through PPP were denied they didn't get it because of the long history of racist lending policies and thousands of undock workers families in Seattle who were laid off or intentionally excluded from the carousel throughout Seattle small businesses have told me they are really wanting to open their doors but without flexible dollars because the federal dollars have so many requirements tied to them without flexible dollars to pay for staff to put in the needed protections for their workers to pay vendors from March because there was no April May or June revenue there you need dollars in hand now so we can kick-start our economy these are the issues that we have come together to address the proposal to jumpstart Seattle would promote health create jobs and save our economy and in this moment everyone that I've talked to over the last two months is asking what they can do how can they help how can they take action and be part of the solution for our largest companies in this city this is one way we can address the crisis and reinvest in our community and the return on investment is huge we know that when individuals have housing and food and jobs they then have cash in hand and can make investments in our local economy by and large these largest companies that we're talking about through this assessment don't have brick-and-mortar store friends they haven't they have continued to operate near full capacity been able to generate profits and I'm hoping that we can all step up and have individuals contribute to our recovery together these are the values in the proposals we can expend we can expend expand nutrition assistance to help families we can provide cash assistance to small businesses and working families we can support local business who are on the brink of not being able to come back without assistance and we can invest in critical infrastructure that keeps people working and creates good union jobs no matter your political leanings and through Seattle I have talked to has agreed on a few things we need immediate relief for the kovat crisis we need to help people get housed and off the street we need more affordable housing throughout the city and we need a significant amount of revenue to make meaningful change so that people have trust that when you step up we can solve problems this is a sensible tax it helps get us there it's focused on urgent needs long-term solutions to create more stable and equitable economy and that's why you see this large group of individuals that will be coming together through a longer list but the diverse group of individuals that we have here in the press conference today to talk about what they would like to see as we move forward as we invest in our community to make sure that folks are housed small businesses are supported and that our entire economy is regenerated in a more equitable way so let's turn it over to our panelists who are here to talk about their lived experience what they have seen throughout this Kolar crisis and quite frankly what they have been hoping for in terms of action even before Kovacic our first two our first three speakers come from the community from the youth panel we will first hear from Marti kustra executive director from the Housing Development Consortium Marti thank you so much for being with us Thank You councilmember mesquita and my appreciation for your willingness to explore alternative paths for how we move forward prior to the blunt emergence of the pandemic we were conflicted City living on one hand with a glorious optimism of a coveted vibrant economy well hardly in the shadows we knew that so many were struggling on the periphery without a home or were housing insecure now this facade as you have said has crumbled we cannot ignore what is important what's necessary in what is just over the last 10 years we in King County had a net loss of a hundred and twelve thousand homes attainable to low-income households they did not physically disappear no this is the result of years of immense job and population growth without adequate truly affordable housing production which drove rents way out of range we live in the one state out of all 50 that gets to claim the position of being the most regressive and how we collect taxes this by the way is not something innovative or to be proud of the implications of this are straightforward elected officials like yourself or left with property taxes and sales taxes as the tools to produce the revenue so they're exacerbating the inequities you have talked about throughout our region it's estimated that an additional 30,000 people will be added to those who will pay more than 50 percent of their income for housing in Washington State starting this fall due to the pandemic if eviction x' and foreclosures are not shunted so many more people will experience homelessness sure we can continue to fight for additional federal funding now and change the state's revenue model tomorrow and while we look out and up we must also lead here in Seattle why because the social justice bank account is so far overdrawn and the need for support for physical and mental health and housing are credible aspects of how we honor and respect all people housing is essential housing is recovery and housing is justice Thank You Marty next we will hear from Teresa Garcia a representative from one America Teressa sorry you're on mute that is a I'm sorry perfect thank you for letting me share my story I am leader with one American Washington state I am an undocumented mother I have live in Washington State for eight years and 20 years in the United States of America undocumented people work hard and we are resilient we care about our families and communities we are always faced with inequities but during the cold 19 pandemic we are experiencing a different level of oppression like many undocumented families my family has been impacted by the corona virus and we do not have enough work hours or no work at all due to this loss of income we could not fully pay Able's rents or bills in may situation was even more difficult because past and recent bills must be we do not have money to cover our responsibilities a documented families are trying to survive during the pandemic and it is frustrating sad and infer that one more time we are not supported by the government even we pay taxes every single year I have two children with daca we are worried and waiting for the Supreme Court to decide the future of that one of my children is a senior at the University and I want to celebrate his success but I right now do not have even money to buy his tapping down he's extremely worried about his future after he graduates with a sociology degree my other child lives with his wife he is the one who is supporting us financially right now my health has been affected during this pandemic because of the level of stress that I am experiencing and how can I go to the doctor if I don't have money to play one more wheel we need our allies to raise their voices and share with others that undocumented people are making real contribution to our communities we deserve to be supported we are on the front lines of their stand emic and jumpstart ceral is an important proposal and it should be approved by the console thank you very much thank you very much sir and the last person in the community partners panel is Sara Rankin director of homelessness rights advocacy project and associate professor at Seattle University Thank You councilmember and I just also wanted to say thank you to today SFR sharing her story and really admire and appreciate your your courage and and your insights thank you I also appreciated Marty's comments I think they're helpful in terms of laying out the overall affordable housing crisis and there has been projections some estimates most recent estimates suggest that the pandemic is projected to cause up to a 45% increase in homelessness throughout the country and so what that means is that more and more of us are standing at the precipice of job loss housing insecurity and homelessness because I direct the homeless rights advocacy project I wanted to just spend a moment trying to explain why council member maaske does proposal is such an important focus from the perspective of the impact that this proposal could have on people experiencing homelessness which as I indicated is going to be increasingly more of us people experiencing homelessness are particularly vulnerable to kovat 19 recent studies have shown that people experiencing homelessness are twice as likely to be hospitalized when they're infected two to four times more likely to require critical care and 2 to 3 times more likely to die than members of the general population who are infected with covin moreover congregate shelters are really not solutions because they don't afford people the ability to self isolate and there they've been referred to in in a number of reports that I've read as time bombs waiting to go off we see daily reports showing high rates of infection including asymptomatic infection alarming outbreaks in shelters in major urban cities throughout the country suggesting rapid rates of transmission if people don't have housing not shelter housing the most recent estimate I saw was that about 40% of our country's homeless population could be infected at the populations viral peak which is later than that its timing later than the viral peak for the rest of the for the rest of the housed population and a significant percentage of those folks are going to need hospitalization so what all this means is that kovetz impact on our homeless population represents a persistent to those who live on the street and for those of us who live off of the street so if we want our region to recover we have to recognize that housing is healthcare not only for our unsheltered neighbors but for all of us housing is essential to our collective public health and our regional recovery so I'd like to thank councilmember mesquita for crafting a proposal especially with the limited tools as Marty indicated that are available to the council that recognizes that in a crisis we have to triage and focus on these critical connections between housing and economic recovery and I'll stop there I'm happy to speak more about supportive housing since that's such a significant component of the proposal but I do think the council member for including that as a major priority thank you very much Sarah and thanks for all of your work and research next we will hear from our business partners on the economic revitalization components of the legislation again thank you to these partners for being here with us today first we'll turn it over to Richard ascend Lars Oh government affairs director for Expedia Richard thank you Richard you may be on mute as well it's still a good morning council member thanks for having me i'm richard de sam lazaro Northwest government affairs manager at Expedia Group last year we were proud to open the doors to our new global headquarters on Elliott Bay Seattle is a vibrant and diverse innovative city that we're proud to call home we're part of this community and that's why we invested millions of dollars into the Elliott Bay Trail creating acres of new public space and improving scenery and safety on this important commute corridor it's why we're proud to co-chair mayor Durkins innovation Advisory Council to lend our technology talent to city agencies and why we helped pilot the opportunity promise internship program helped develop the next generation of Seattle's innovation workforce and it's why we're here today Expedia group is committed to partnerships that seek to address our hometowns biggest challenges we're so grateful the councilmember mosquito welcomed our input into the work to tackle interwoven challenges of economic recovery housing affordability and homelessness in Seattle well we are concerned about any new city tax in this period of economic uncertainty this is a necessary conversation until progress can be made on state and regional solutions telethia so on behalf of Expedia group Thank You councilmember mesquita for your leadership and for inviting us to be part of this work thank you so much Richard I really appreciate your words and we will keep working on that state-level solution as embedded in this legislation as well thank you Steve Harper from Ethan Stoll he's the president of Ethan Stoll restaurants Steve thank you so much for all of your contributions and for being here with us today Thank You councilmember it's an honor to be here and an honor to have worked with you and your your team throughout the last several weeks and months in crafting this obviously through kovin the world is falling into a ditch and the only way we are gonna get out of this is together I truly believe that government nonprofit private sectors all have a role to play and what we're trying to rebuild and I think this proposal moves a long way towards that and while I do understand a lot of my friends in the business community are concerned about the timing of this new tax I have to believe that rebuilding together in a more equitable way is a just an altruistic goal for which we could all contribute a little something as a co-chair of this way is united this year's United Way annual campaign with my partner Ethan as well as being a member of executive constant teams one table initiative has become increasingly clear to me that the funding for structural changes necessary to address long-term solutions for homelessness and many of the things that the community partners highlighted has to come from government with support from business labor and the other communities I thank those people for speaking earlier to those needs and to my friends at the third door coalition I'm excited to see the implementation of some bigger plan which was both thoughtful wise and regionally based I appreciate the inclusiveness of this process and it was truly taking multiple perspectives and stitching them together for my part and our company's part the greatest concern we had was that the payroll tax should not be impacting the jobs of the very lowest wage workers and those whose employment is already going to be so difficult coming back from this crisis alternative proposals that have been put out by other council members are massively regressive to both the midsize businesses and the small and the low-wage workers that they purport to support my second concern was around homelessness being a regional problem and in the post koban economy Seattle cannot do this alone and I truly believe that the inclusion of the sunset provision that kept the councilmember just highlighted is a wise inclusion that will spur action at the county and state levels and I look forward to continue to working through that process as well I truly hope what happened here for this process and what has been undertaken can be a model for the long term collaboration across government business labor and the nonprofit sectors the process should be proof that if we stop pounding the table and actually start listening to each other we have a real chance to address some of the most intractable issues in society thank you for your time and I look forward to continuing the collaboration thank you very much Steve really appreciate you highlighting those pieces in in all of the ways you've stopped them it's been a pleasure to work with both of you Richard and Steve thanks again for being here today our last president errs come from our labor partners it's truly been an honor of mine to be able to work with these folks over the last decade or so and our first speaker is Kristen Kent McLean business manager at Iron Workers Local 86 Chris please take it away good morning everybody as you said my name is Chris mcclain I'm the manager of iron Workers Local 86 I'll start by saying that simply we support this proposed legislation there's clearly a need for supportive services in and around Seattle for more for our more vulnerable community members which includes workers and small businesses the legislation that's being proposed would go to great lengths because it has broad and considerate assistance ranging from housing stability and mental health to small business orden economic revitalization I think it was Mahatma Gandhi who said a nation's greatness can be measured by how it treats its weakest members with that being said this legislation or legislation similar to this has been negotiated and supported by the larger business community and the iron workers in the recent past in the form of House bill 2907 which unfortunately was unsuccessful in passing the legislature we now have an opportunity in this proposal to pick up where they left off as the manager of a private construction Union one of my roles is to negotiate with employers that are signatory to our contract we find that the best method to gain improvement for our membership community is through negotiation similar to most life experiences you aim for the stars and land in the clouds we support fair negotiations in good faith because the outcomes are often longer-lasting with greater effect and reduce the possibility of those end goals being subject to the tides of emotional swings Seattle is a very diverse City ranging from the very affluent to the extremely impoverished good legislation such as councilmember mosquitos proposal is what helps to blend those extremes so that we are truly together when it comes to continue making this great city vibrant diverse and considerate for all walks of life thank you Chris thank you for your words and for your leadership really appreciate all the work that you do and for helping to thread that needle for the economic recovery that our community needs and that your members need to rebuild our our local economy the next presenter is Jeannette Randall from United Food and Commercial Workers Local 21 a grocery worker at Safeway Jeanette thank you for being with us today thank you so much as councilmember mesquita said my name is Jeanette Randall I've worked in the grocery industry for nearly 20 years I'm also a democratically elected executive race president at the OCW as a grocery worker I have witnessed the inequity in our city grow food insecurity and housing stability are both serious problems that our city faced even before kovin 19 I fear that pandemic will only cause an inequity caused this inequity to grow and will see more families struggling to keep a roof over their head and food on the table everyday many customers come through my line and to my store I see some people who are able to buy all the food that they need for their family and to many more who must bring up their groceries one by one to see if they can afford their whole cart now more than ever we must reinvest in our community we are in the midst of a public health crisis people must be healthy and house to survive for our most vulnerable our city must step up to ensure that they get food assistance housing and other support they need this proposal will help boost our economy uplift small business and help support our immigrant refugee and elderly communities my customers are my neighbors they deserve to be invested in because when we have lift them it supports our city as a whole UFCW local 21 understands the need for this revenue and we support a long-term solution for housing and economic stimulation which will help address this urgent health crisis that kovat 19 has exposed and amplified Thank You Jeanette thank you so much and thanks for being out there on the front line you truly are essential and we need to say not just say that but invest in essential workers and pay them and respect them that way too so thank you for representing UFCW 21 and today representing the clients that you see every day our last speaker is president sterling hinders sterling Harder's from SEIU 775 a friend and a longtime labor advocate Thank You sterling for being with us today Thank You councilmember miss Keita SEIU 775 represents 45,000 long-term care workers across the state including thousands of caregivers here in Seattle and our members have really been on the front lines dealing with this pandemic because they are working in nursing homes and taking care of vulnerable residents in their own homes and we've seen the impact of this pandemic on low-income residents caregivers have lost their jobs their hours have been cut they've lost income their family member have lost jobs and income but their expenses aren't going down their rent isn't going down the cost of food isn't going down and cost of utilities is going down that story that Jeanette just shared about folks having to rang up their groceries one by one to make sure that they could afford them that is what my members are facing we're facing a massive budget deficit at every level city state and the public investments public services that working people rely on now more than ever are at risk and the budget cuts are only gonna make things worse and push us deeper into a recession so what we need is real investments that support low income folks who are the hardest hit we need to fix our upside-down tax code and make sure that the wealthy and large corporations folks that can afford to pay more do pay more and finally I just want to appreciate how much effort councilmember mesquita has put into this proposal I know you and your team met with a huge number of stakeholders and nonprofits businesses you guys really did the work and so I want to appreciate the thoughtfulness of this proposal we look forward to working with the council and the mayor to find new revenue to support critical investments to help low income communities and help revitalize our economy thank you Thank You president herders and thank you all for all of the information that you have shared today on the why why we are here standing together as a broad coalition president hardest mentioned the number of individuals we've met with I think we counted over a hundred over a hundred organizations countless Xoom meetings the proposal in front of you is data-driven a solution oriented it boosts our local economy by investing in our most vulnerable our smallest businesses so that we can help all in our economy not just survive but be more resilient as we come out of this Kovach crisis I will turn it over to Danna to facilitate questions from the press we do hope to answer your questions the press members of the media did receive a technical briefing earlier and if you do have some of those technical questions if I can't answer them in the moment I will make sure to follow up with you what really would encourage you to direct your questions to our community partners as well their names and organizations are listed on the slide in case you need that for reference as well thanks Danna this is Joseph from Council oh go ahead this is Joseph from council communications and we asked people to submit reporter systemit questions via email and we're going to go ahead and take those questions in the order in which they were received and allow the reporters themselves to ask them if you are someone who has not emailed a question please go ahead and raise your hand in the zoo map and after the we go through the queue of email questions we'll call on you in the order in which you raise your hand so the first three reporters who sent in questions are Erica Barnett from this year's crank and we have Natalie Graham from the stranger followed by Dan Beekman from the Seattle Times so we're going to start with Erica go ahead Erica oh hi this is kind of a technical question I just had a question about the compensation the hundred fifty thousand and up does that include benefits and things like that or is that purely salary thank you Erica we will get back to you on the specific details but we made sure in the text of the legislation if you don't have it already we can share that with you it does not include things like health care so it's truly just intended to be salary and the financial benefits that a worker may receive from their employer we wanted to do this intentionally recognizing you cannot pay rent with health care we bargained a lot to make sure that our health care benefits are robust and we also want to apply the same concept to this assessment and really just assess on the truth salary next up go ahead Joseph and Erica if I didn't answer your question I'm happy to follow up with you but it is not it does not include benefits great thank you and next up we have Natalie Graham from the stranger hey Natalie hi can hear me yes okay great um so can you talk about the choice to go with what has been described by reporters as a high earners tax instead of the blanket the blanket tax on payrolls above seven million why go this route route and will it raise enough money to do what the tax seeks to accomplish does it move the needle enough so I want to lift up some of the conversation that you heard from Richard from Expedia and Steve from Ethan still restaurants there is a big difference right now between companies who are mostly service sector and retail who've had to board up their brick-and-mortar shops who haven't had any revenue or very little revenue with online deliveries we we know that those who were potentially considered large six months ago might not even be in existence six months from now and we really wanted to try to emphasize that those who have had the ability to continue to generate revenue those who have been able to have their employees working from home for the most part those who have been able to see profits continue that we think that those companies if if this proposal looks so sexual they will be able to reinvest into our local economy but a lot of folks who are making less than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars are more likely to be in the service sector it was important for us to recognize the difference between that type of employment versus employment that for most part would allow people to mostly stay at home so it was it was a post Cogan analysis that we did on which companies we thought could potentially absorb and help contribute to this cost I don't know if if Steve or Richard have anything else to say about sort of the difference between those companies that have been just waiting to open up and those who've been able to continue Steve I saw you come online if you happen yeah I'll say something we appreciate that Teresa the analysis that we did in the very early part of the conversation with councilmember mosquito staff was that you know the lowest wage earners would be disproportionately impacted in the ability to get their jobs back and the companies that employed them would be disproportionately impacted by alternative proposals in front of the council today and we engaged in this process where we as Teresa said we were a large business that would have been caught in that last year who knows what this year will hold for us but we felt that we will be paying a component of this ourselves but the bulk of our workers we want to just get them back to work that's our number one goal of the company and if we can do that and this proposal allows us to continue scaling back to where we were we look forward to contributing more over time thank you Steve and I'll just also add you know this also builds on the concept that you saw in the house legislation that represented Macri introduced House bill 2907 where the conversation did start with an analysis of assessing those salaries or that Kay role over 150,000 appreciate the really hard work that went into that piece of legislation we know that it was a conglomeration of businesses and labor and we tried to build off of those concepts here again this is the starting point for our conversation here at the city but we really did try to build on that goodwill and that hard work at the state level as well thank you next up we have Dan Beekman from this channel times thanks a lot I just wanted to ask it's my understanding that the way to get the money out the door to help people right now who are dealing with the effects of the pandemic is through going into the city's emergency reserves and I just want to make sure I understand you know how you know how much there's there there is there how much would need to be taken and I think that there have been some conversations about you that money to close the budget gap and I'm wondering if those uses might be in conflict thank you Dan I will try to answer your question and then we can make sure the central staff follows up with any technical pieces that you need in addition so as you saw from the proposal years one and two are different in terms of spend than the out-years 2022 and beyond and that's because the assessment does not actually begin getting paid to the city until 2022 based on 2021 payroll expenses so in years 1 & 2 or this year 2020 and 2021 year 1 we would spend about 50% of the anticipated revenue from the 2021 tax this money is going to be spent out of existing cash reserves as you heard from central staff this morning that includes funding from the emergency emergency reserves and rainy day and we will begin paying it back in 2021 and specifically into the details it's about 67 million dollars that we have in those reserves and there is a number of unspent dollars in previous budgets that we can pull from we know at least there's 13 million dollars from last year that is understand right now I think it is a fair question that you asked about how those dogs are potentially being used by the mayor's ongoing budget analysis right now and we'll have to reconcile that we were hopeful that we would have received that proposal last week but we will continue to work on those proposals and make sure that every dollar is accounted for because right now we have the opportunity to use emergency reserves funds if there was ever an emergency it is a global public health pandemic that is deadly it is a recession that rivals a depression and it is the opportunity for us to invest in the unprecedented number of folks who are unemployed in our small businesses who without this assistance may not recover at all so as we think about sort of the values there I think we'll all be working over the next few weeks to reconcile any differences but the dollars are available and we can pay those dollars back once the starts coming in in 2022 thank you next up we have Natalie swabby from King 5 followed by Kevin Scofield of SCC in sight go ahead and add Allie I'm you can you hear me yeah and I can hear you so when was like this has come up in the past we have heard people raise concerns that could this cause wages to go down I want to hear what you think about that and then also it's obvious that you've been engaged with a lot of stakeholders here and we're hearing from some of those today what are some of the concerns that have been raised from stakeholders and have you answered those some of the biggest ones okay well first I think that we need to realize that Seattle is a highly competitive very prosperous place to have a business and when we think about an assessment of over 7 million in Seattle payroll and just assessing those at over 150,000 dollars in salary and then that higher tier and over half a million in salary I think we have to realize that the type of assessment that we're talking about on those specific companies is probably not gonna have a dental mental impact and I think that the data bears out that it's not going to impact wages we've seen reports from that in the past but let me give you a specific example so you can see the magnitude of the tax that we're talking about if we have a company that has a total payroll of about seven and a half million dollars for example and they have 50 employees and let's just say for the sake of argument all 50 of those employees make a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year the obligation under this proposal would be fifty two thousand five hundred dollars and that's on a community that has a Seattle payroll of over seven million dollars so I think that that magnitude of the company's overall worth or investment compared to fifty two thousand dollars shows that this is a small portion of dollars that we are hoping can be reinvested and combined with these other companies to really invest into our local economies just for economics you asked about the large or the breath of the coalition and how how those conversations have gone is did I can you repeat that last part of the question no it's I think you said you've reached out to a hundred stakeholders oh yeah just we're hearing some positive comments from some companies like Expedia but have you heard any pushback and how are you answering those concerns so as we've talked to small businesses medium businesses immigrant rights advocates housing advocates labor friends large businesses universally people have said I really just wish we could do a state-level income tax and I think we are in the same position we actually have shared agreement that there needs to be true progressive revenue reform at the state level as President Carter said we need to right-size up our upside-down tax system and all of us are united in wanting to there to be progressive revenue at a state level so when we've heard some of those concerns or you know a desire to do income tax instead the first thing we did was to say whether or not we could do what the first thing we did was analyze whether or not we could do an income tax at the city level and without the ability to have a progressive income tax and just to have it flat rate without the ability to have a rebate of some sort immediately it I think we all can agree it's not possible or unconscionable to ask low wage workers and families to pay the city attacks at this point when they can't even put food on the table or pay the rent so without the ability to do that and also the possible legal challenges for us to do a local income tax really the tool at our disposal the very limited tools as Marty Costra talked about and Sarah Rankin is to do a payroll tax but as we recognize there's harmony among those who you know are a little uncomfortable or nervous about a local tax we have put legislation language that says that if there is progressive revenue at the county or the state level we would assess and our intent is to basically sunset our tax if there's true progressive substantial revenue that we can think and I think that element really helps people know people be heard when they say let's all work towards the same boat and I know that that Richard mentioned this in his comments do I know he had to leave a little early in case he's still here if you want to comment on that Richard looking for him in the land up here he may have had to leave a little early but that's I hope that's helpful in answering a question there are some people who are going to be supportive of this proposal because they also recognize it could potentially be short-term in nature as we work towards a longer-term solution at the state or regional level thank you and our final question comes from Kevin Schofield at CC insight go ahead Kevin okay two questions a long one short one long one is maybe it's a short answer in the 20/20 spending plan is it all new spending or is some of the backfilling revenue support for existing spending and then the second question is falling from from Natalie so Abby's question have you actually talked to Amazon about this proposal and she did what did they say sorry I was on I was on mute there I'll make the last question first um you know there are folks that I have worked with over the years that do interact with folks at Amazon and we are interested in hearing their feedback just like I'm interested in hearing anybody's feedback on this proposal that's always been my policy including you know years ago two years ago when we were working on various revenue strategies my door is going to be open to hearing feedback we have shared the pillars or the framework of the legislation with a number of business partners and that includes some folks who tangentially do work with the folks over at Amazon but this is also I think I want to repeat something that's important from the earlier presentation from central staff and what you've heard from the folks here this is not about one company this is not about one once one sort of targeted effort this is about a universal approach to really reinvest in our local economy and so as I am interested in hearing from all community members including large businesses or smallest businesses who we've talked to quite a bit and ongoing conversations with labour and community partners in terms of whether or not the money for the 2020 spend is new my to the South Asia Creek is on the line too if you have more detailed questions but it is it is new so we're talking about identifying funding for immigrants and refugees to have the ability to have cash assistance very similar to what Austin City Council has authorized we're talking about asking small businesses what they needed and they've told us they needed flexible dollars and they also need childcare support so we're we've built in a plan to work with local childcare providers to make sure that folks have childcare so people can go back to work we have enhanced some of the dollars around food vouchers and food assistance and Kevin maybe just before I finish answering that question I'll double check are you asking if these are completely new programs or if we're adding two programs I am asking if if you're adding two program in particular because it looks like one of the funds you're tapping from is a rainy day fund which is supposed to be sort of revenue replacement for when there's a revenue downturn like we have right now rather the expectation when it was set up was that it's rich it's replacing revenues rather than for new spending but it looks like you're gonna be using it for for new spending so I just wanted to clarify you know what the income you says whether it was new spending or or revenue replacement I'm just gonna double check to see if um Sejal from my office is interested in talking about that or if we should follow up we can follow up with you there's one from central staff as well but I think let me let me give you one example of where I think it's um adding to existing strategies but with the new revenue is gonna actually be make an impact we saw small businesses who for the Small Business Assistance Program at the city level total upwards of nine thousand small businesses who were seeking support we were only able to give a handful of those individuals additional assistance so we you know we also saw from the home-based program at the county when they open their doors for rental assistance and housing assistance dollars to make sure that people could stay at a stable e house within three days they got thousands of applications and they are not able to meet the need that's out there so the intent is to really augment or add to some of the programs that we've seen have not sufficient revenue at the moment and really make a meaningful impact and we'll follow up with you to make sure that you get the details on where each of those dollars are going because um it's gonna be key for our spend plan details colleagues sorry yes colleagues friends from the media we also will be sending you a narrative document that corresponds with the two tables that you should have seen that correspond with the pieces of legislation out there so that it's an explainer document Thank You councillor mesquita and thank you participants today that's all the time we have but again additional questions can be sent to me by a Madras is Danna Robinson flute at Seattle gov and as promised we'll e-mail us the information and details discussed on today's call at the end of this call we'll do our best respond to your questions in a timely fashion thanks again thanks for everybody for joining us for today and the panelists I really appreciate you thanks to members of the media our central staff team in my office stasia pre Karen house buddy dick with us and every class you have been incredible so huge amount of appreciation thanks for joining us