This week: Herbold in the driver’s seat

This week the interesting stuff is happening in Council member Lisa Herbold’s committee.

The usual Monday meetings, the morning Council Briefing and the afternoon Full Council meeting, look to be rather tame stuff. The Council Briefing will have an update from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations on the current legislative session in Olympia, and a briefing from King County Assessor John Wilson on senior citizen exemptions. The Full Council meeting will be short as the only substantive agenda items are confirmation of two appointments to the Seattle Ethics and Elections Committee, both of which sailed through committee and are thoroughly uncontroversial.

This week’s Introduction and Referral Calendar has four fairly routine approvals from Council member Mike O’Brien’s Sustainability and Transportation Committee, two of which involve permits for existing skybridges.

The big action this week will be at Council member Lisa Herbold’s Civil Rights, Economic Development and Arts Committee meeting Tuesday morning. The committee will hear a briefing on the city’s implementation and enforcement of labor standards, which went through several updates last year. The Office of Labor Standards (after some hiccups) now publishes a monthly dashboard of statistics on inquiries, investigations and resolutions.

The committee will also be briefed on the results of a feasibility study on installing public art at Pier 86  (aka the waterfront grain silos and elevator.  There’s a long slide deck, but here’s the quick summary.

And finally Herbold’s committee will hear a report on the “economic impact of the music industry and working conditions of club musicians.”  No presentation posted yet. UPDATE: The 46-page report upon which the presentation is based is posted here.

Tuesday’s Energy and Environment committee meeting was cancelled, but Wednesday the Gender Equity, Safe Communities and New Americans Committee and the Human Services and Public Health are both scheduled to meet — though the agendas have not been published yet.

Tuesday evening at 5pm, Mayor Ed Murray and city staff will host a “community conversation about the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda”  (aka HALA).  No word yet about whether any of the City Council members will be presentUPDATE: This morning at the Council Briefing, Council member Johnson said he would be there and encouraged his fellow Council members to attend. The cancellation of Council member Sawant’s committee on Tuesday afternoon suggests she might be out of town, but if she is here she will likely be present and will put out a call to her supporters to attend and speak up.