Thank you.
Alright, I'll call to order this meeting of the Seattle Ethics and elections commission. It is 7 January 2026. It's our 1st meeting of 2026, so happy New Year to everyone. Independence we have Commissioner Bassel, Commissioner Smith, Commissioner Pecales, and myself, Commissioner Shermer. Looks like we have a pretty full agenda today, so let's go ahead and jump in. The 1st action item is the election of the 20.
26 vice chair. I've previously previously spoken with Commissioner Vassel and she has agreed to serve as vice chair if elected. But in fairness I did want to open it up to any other commissioner who is interested in running for vice chair.
So I'll give anyone else a chance to speak up Hearing crickets, can I get a motion to appoint commissioner Vassel as the 2026 vice chair?
So moved.
Seconded moved by.
Commissioner Kaylas insecuted by Commissioner Smith all in favor of appointing commissioner Vassel as the 2026 vice chair raise your hand or say I all opposed say nay, any obstentions?
I would say anything.
Commissioner Commissioner Bassel raising their hand, the motion passes with commissioner Bassel obstaining. Congratulations to Commissioner Vassell, our new vice chair for 2026.
Thank you, it's a pleasure so far. You're here.
Happy to have you on board rousing through our next action item is adoption of the 3 December 2026 meeting minutes. Have any commissioners not had a chance to look over the meeting minutes?
Any items of discussion by any of the commissioners on the meeting minutes?
Alright, hearing none, can I get a motion to prove the 3 December 2026 or 2025 excuse me, meeting minutes?
So moved?
Second.
Moved by Commissioner Smith and second in by commissioner Becalis.
All in favor of approving the minutes. Raise your hand, say I, I all oppose, say nay, many abstenctions, and the motion passes unanimously. All right. Up next we've got confirmation of two ethics and elections commission staff. Wayne, do you wanna give us a little introduction of the staff here?
Yes, I will. Under SMC 3.7 oh .1 hundred point. That's our that's our enabling ordinance. You all have to confirm my appointments of permanent staff. And so today what I'm proposing is that you confirm the two tempts who've been on staff for a year now when when they announced, when Kathy Moore stepped down and we have to run a special election in two.
2026, then again running much in 2027. We realized it made more sense to keep on the two tempts we had than to keep going back to the pool and trying to get new tempts. So I'm happy just they've been great people, that's why we're keeping them up. I don't want to like softball. So Amanda Frankie is she's an administra administrative assistant three. She's not here today. She's dealing.
With the family health emergency just like commissioner Haz. But she's been with us for a year now. She is, I think veteran of like working with entrepreneurs in Germany. She worked at the German marshall Fund before she came here, so that's her background. She's been great and Jennifer Martinez who did join us today.
She'll be a public relations specialist for the next two years. She's a graduate with the masters from the University of New Mexico in educational leadership. She's very active with the children's programs down there and done great work here. So I'm happy to have her and yes, I'm just asking to confirm both hires.
Great. Any questions by any of the commissioners? Alright, see NO questions. Can I get a motion to confirm these two permanent staff members?
So moved.
Second.
All right, moved by commissioner Vassels seconded Bycales. All commissioners in favor of confirming these two permanent staff members raise your hand or say I. All opposed, say name, any extensions, and the motion passes unanimously. Congratulations.
Welcome the board permanently, and so I'm not there in person to meet you today, but hopefully I'll be there in person at the next meeting. So look forward to working with you. All right, we've got a couple of discussion items up next. The 1st is the Wilson for Seattle Committee penalty letter. Wayne, do you want to give us a little bit of background here?
Yes, this is a penalty be issued. It's 17 December, not 24 November, I apologize for the misprinted date on the letter the jump, the penning on second page has correct date, but the 1st page is incorrect. So on 17 December, this was after the KOW rant story about Mayor Wilson and her getting support from her parents with childcare when she was running for mayor.
And some enterprising satellite sent us an email saying, I think this is a violation of your campaign finance laws, isn't it? So they, they said that and we looked into it and I do think it was Anytime you have a candidate.
Running and somebody can help them with many expenses, even if it's a parent. This actually takes me back to when I was a young attorney, like you all and I was involved with like writing a letter to the FEC because we haven't write.
Clients who said like I want to give grants to candidates, help them run I don't care what they're running for, I just want to help them run. He's gonna give $10000 in financial support to candidates. And the FDC said NO way, you can't do that. And I do think that that is the right thing because it's I.
I didn't say to also the mayor, I said this is the best, this is a way that like people within me are not likely to agree are just trying to get more money to politics. They're just trying to like, they're gonna support you, make your help easier to run and say that's not a campaign contribution. That's, that's kind of an end run around the contribution limits. So we did share that with the mayor elects and in the end she agreed to like reim.
Maersk her parents for what they've given her for child support. So they, so she gave back that $10000, they paid for their childcare out of their campaign funds and I find 02:50 just to make it clear that this was not ok. Like I said this I did say in the letter I said this is a nominal finding because the case of 1st impression here but if I do see more of it we'll have to find more, so.
So yeah. So that's what we did. And not only to that we had to when I replied to the person who complained I sent them the letter and I said like, hey, I've resolved your complaint, but this is how I've done it. You have 21 days to appeal if you'd like. I've not heard from them that today's the 21st day, so I don't think there's any problem with us sharing that and you make any comments you like to say it's Yeah, I just want to share that letter and if you have anything thoughts let me know.
Any questions by any of the commissioners?
So Wayne, if her friend had offered to babysit for her, would you have treated that as an in kind contribution?
No.
Why not? What's the dif.
Well I mean, if they offered a babysit, I don't think we would have had, I don't think it would have gotten to where we were talking about $600, so.
I mean, babies, let's say they babysit every day of the week for the duration of the campaign.
We could get there yet. I would have to look at that complaint. Yeah I don't want to I don't want to make a big deal of this. That's the whole thing, I mean, I would hate to be out there kind of saying like this is all illegal because that kind of stuff, it is kind of natural for you to get help with babysitting in that if you're running for office. But when she said like I got ten and I put the quote in the letters she made it very clear like their support was due to her running for office. It was because she was a candidate that they gave her $10000. So I think that's, that's a level of money that is more than babysitting, so.
Yeah, and I had that question as well, so I mean my understanding is, is the violation came because it was pretty explicit in the letter that the money was because she was running for office. Yes. Okay.
That was that was why she had to they never had childcare before her and her husband, they did not have childcare because they didn't need it. But they realizing with the new pressures of her being a candidate, she was gonna need some childcare. So they gave her the financial support.
I, I know you said that the mayor returned the $10000 and I gathered she also did not object to the fine that's been assessed, is that right?
They did not appeal to find. No, not appeal to find object it a little bit she.
Could not appeal it by December 31, right? Okay.
I should make that clear. Okay.
And the $250 penalty, you said it's a nominal penalty amount. Is that similar to other, you know, situations where you've dealt with a novel issue before, like the amount of the penalty?
Yes. Yeah, I don't I generally like to the 1st time we do something like this, we're not out there with big finds.
Right, and I did note you said in your in your letter that, you know, for future violations of this nature, you didn't tend to assess higher penalties, and so I'm wondering, is there some sort of training on this that is going to be incorporated into the training you already give candidates?
We can do that if you think I mean, this isn't, I don't think this is gonna come up again. I mean, it might, but we'll make sure we let people know that this is a legal, we can share the letter with them but yeah like I said I don't want I don't think this ought to become, this shouldn't be driving a lot of efforts on our behalf, on our part just because like I said, it's a one off in my opinion.
I, I don't disagree that it in practice it might not come up a lot, but I do, I do understand how it can be an unintuitive point, particularly if it's, if it's something like commissioner Pakella's mentioned where you have a family member providing like sustained childcare or you could imagine other scenarios, I don't know, letting someone who doesn't have a vehicle, you know, use their car for the campaign or things like.
Like that, that I don't think, you know, an average candidate would assume should be, should qualify as a contribution. So I, I take the point raised earlier that, you know, thinking of a way to introduce that more clearly if it's not already in, in Canada training it, you know, might be worthwhile. All right.
We will make sure that.
It seems to me that the, the obvious purpose of the principle embodied in the FEC decision is that you don't want personal gifts to individual candidates to circumvent the contribution limit.
Right, but.
Based on the very limited factual scenario you've laid out here that what I've seen reported in the media, that is not what is alleged in this case.
What's not alleged?
That that the parents were intending their gift to aid in the campaign, meaning to be kind of because of course candidates can.
It was the.
It was to enable her to be a candidate, not so that she would funnel the funds as a personal gift that then she can spend in whatever way she wants on her campaign. I see, I see there there's a fundamental difference between the two.
Okay.
But it's, it's of course Dicta because it was an appeal, so, let, I just wanna let the record reflect that based on my reading of the of the statute I I don't think I would have reached the same conclusion.
Any other questions by the commissioners? Alright, next up we have city ordinance 127379 ethics code requirements for political consultants. Wayne, do you wanna give us some background on this one as well?
Yes, if you all will recall, this is a request that former council president Nelson made before, before the December meeting she asked us to look at this. We Dacky, you agreed we couldn't because there was not time.
And I'm spent today to sit here and tell you that it's now long. It literally was before the holidays he succeeded in getting this through our committee on the ground, on the floor and passed. So.
It was very watered down. It is not the same draft bill we saw last month, but it does still impose on us the requirement that these people will register with us and we have to put it on our website.
And that's, that's all it is. It just there's nothing other there's not a regular reporting requirement. It's just registered. You have to tell us you're doing the work for a committee and tell us when they stop. So that's, that is now a law. We can all think about what, how about what we think about it, but it is the law of land now, so.
Yeah, so this document that's that was returned one time by mayor. Yeah. So this is, is this what became. Yeah, that's it. That is the why saying the law yes.
Questions by any of the commissioners?
I mean I guess I think the answer is probably NO, but do you anticipate this will impose any material additional burden on you or staff?
Well, we all have to get a filing regime up and running, we'll have to find some place where to put it on our website, we'll have to come up with a form for people to use or like a web form for them to like little report the stuff online. So yeah, there will be some work. It's not gonna be nothing.
I, I sort of meant like in terms of ongoing work, I understand that there will be startup efforts that are needed.
I don't, I mean the thing is the wildcare is like people can now complain about this if somebody feels like.
Wrong another avenue for people to file complaints in election seasonsing their opponent of relying on unregistered political consultants or whatever. So, yeah. That's, we can't control that.
So you don't see necessarily staff costs beyond the initial startup costs but potentially, you know, and running the program, but potentially staff time and receiving additional complaints or requests for investigation.
Right. Yes.
And are you planning to put together a, like a standard registration and termination form?
I believe so yes. That that's what we would normally do. It's what we've done with other kind of other laws like this in the past, so I guess. I did just realize though this is part of the ethics code and I don't think the ethics code, the, the part where you can find people is under like for violations of 4.16 point oh seven oh so I'm not sure if this isn't something we can find for. I'm not.
I'm not really sure I could even accept a complaint of this, so, but maybe we could, I don't know. I've not really looked at the longer those things. Yeah, it does, there's something in here, but now that I should not be making up brilliant ideas as I'm talking.
You'll we'll put our new public relations person to work.
Yeah. Seems like something that we'll, we'll be dealing with here in the future now that we've got a whole new area of the code. Alright, any additional questions by the commissioners?
Alright, next up we have our democracy voucher program report. Renee, you wanna take us away? Yep.
So what you're seeing here is basically a summary of what, happened in 2025 in terms of invoicing, in terms of users, the last day for campaigns to close out their 2025.
Season is this friday. So hopefully we are truly done in terms of democracy vouchers for the year. I will be looking at some comparisons to our last year, but.
Is concluded. Looking at voucher usage across the city, we had our typically higher districts in 326 interestingly as well. So we will continue looking at voucher users and demographics and with our resource.
If they are available to continue with that research. Internally, we will also post a post election report that really just talks about program, the budget and post that with you folks in the Kirk's office. So we are very much closing out. Hopefully we are.
Closed out of 2025. Activity for 26 is also underway. We were able to review the submissions for the outreach contracts and we picked because of our budget limitations, we've picked four organizations below. We've actually worked with three of them previously and the Korean america.
Is an organization that we've not worked with in the past. So they're all heavy in D five in experience that we could tell from their proposals. So that's the update we have for now, but 2026 is underway and we are confident we're gonna meet our mailing deadlines and.
Outreach activity, we're gonna be really excited to share some of the new fun ideas that are coming out of this team. So that's what I have update.
Great. I, I always love hearing the outreach ideas. I think that's so important for growing the program. Can you remind us what was the budget for outreach again? I think we discussed it in the previous meeting.
The contract, the contract, was it funds was a hundred thousand dollars a hundred thousand, so this was where we were at for.
Great. Questions by any of the commissioners?
Do you know off the top of your head, I didn't get a chance to double check this, but district bio I'm just curious to know what part of the city in terms of why it's a little bit lower in terms of, I'm sorry, just where it is. It's all north. Okay. I don't. So like on the east side of fives like Lake City north Gates and then over to like.
Okay. Hellolake. What am I missing? They belief and then just piece of green wood, and then just right up to the.
Sorry about that everybody that came out. I was just trying to quiz you, you know?
Alright, any additional questions for Renee? I think that leaves us with the executive director report from Wayne.
Alright, I just let you know that Mark Mayo will be retiring before the next meeting. He's been our investigator and our trainer for.
Ten years now, so we're losing him long story career, started with a royer administration, then worked for the city attorney for a long time and he's gonna be retiring, so it's a big loss for us. We're gonna take him to lunch next month, but next week, so I guess.
I just want to report that to you all getting a really missed mark. I did attend the cogo conference in early December Atlanta. I was a panel comparing and contrasting the varying forms of public financing and also took part in a half day round table of public and finance administrators.
It was unseasonably cold in Atlanta, I can tell you that, not best place to be. I didn't so it was a good time. Yes. I'm gonna be out of the office for two stretches before the February meeting. I'm gonna be going to Mexico for a wedding here in a couple.
Weeks and then on to Florida to visit my aging mom for a little while so yeah but the office would be well covered. One more update of a personal nature, I want to report that my wife ended up accepting a position with the King County executive. She'd be the deputy chief of staff over there, so.
Any recusals and like rejiggering of my responsibilities isn't necessary, so that's the good thing. Yes, I will return I will remain fully committed to the SEDC. We got into it, we did have Ryan Anderson sign a promistery note. He's agreed to do his payment is fine and three payments.
So those should be, I think his 1st one is due by the 10th of this month, so we'll let you know if anything goes south there. I'm not expecting that. The other thing we need to talk about is the workgroup process. Section seven of the voucher program renewal that was put before voters last time says.
The executive, the city council, and the Ethics and elections Commission are requested to convene a workgroup in early 2026 to recommend that the mayor and city council improvements to the democracy voucher campaign by public finance program.
Including addressing the impact of political action committees and city elections. The stakeholder process should include input for candidates, campaign staff, professional election consultants, two government advocates, and the executive director and members of the Ethics elections commission.
So that is now in play right now. I'm not sure what we're let's say that we're requested to convene our work group I think that's it doesn't direct, it doesn't say your work group shall be convened or it says we're, it requests that we convene one and again it requests us, the executive and the council.
So I don't know really, I'd love to all your all thoughts on like what that requires of us. Do I wait to hear from the mayor and or the city council about their desire for a work group or not? Do I take.
Believe here, any thoughts or welcome? The executive of the council, and the ethics commissioner are requested to convene a workgroup in early 2026. It's very strange language.
Seems like the request is made of us. Yeah. Right.
I mean, have you heard, I'm assuming you haven't heard anything from, from the executive or or anyone else on convening the workgroup.
No, and then again this the council president's in her second day on the job, the mayor's in her 5th day on the job. So yes, everybody's very new, so I'm not really sure how much.
And I feel like a lot of the energy for this was coming from, not the best friends of the program, so I don't know. I feel like the drive for this wasn't really our allies, so yeah.
Be that as a may, we should we should take the request seriously, but I, it doesn't sound like there's great urgency to it, so perhaps, we can put it on the agenda as a discussion item for next meeting.
All right.
Is my suggestion to the cre to the chair?
I think that makes sense. I, I do think, I agree we should take it seriously and I mean, I don't see the harm in in you taking the lead on reaching out to folks about the work group, but I think maybe more discussion at the next meeting is worthwhile.
Okay, I'm curious to know if, if a work group of similar or any other nature has been convened before with these, with these groups or I don't know there was there was kind of when we 1st messed the initiative.
There was, we put together an informal work group in the office to like have people sitting around talking about like what it all look like, how we have to be administering it but we have an advisory group. Yeah, there was the advisory group and then which included a lot of external.
And then internally we had a like a stakeholder group that really didn't ed information around the city and helped, you know, just make sure all the parts were gonna run in it. So this is maybe on lend of the two because we didn't have the program then we were just making it up and building it shouldn't making it up.
So I'm not seeing any of this language like this with other initiatives either, so yeah.
I guess Wayne, I from your point of view, what's the what's the the you know goal of such a workgroup? I guess I'm a little unclear on what the goal ultimate goal is.
I don't know. It is I mean it tends to like improve the program that being the ultimate goal, but I mean one of the things I did pick up through this was people wanted to really look at, people have always been frustrated by the independent expenditures and like thinking there would must be some way for us to do something about independent expenditures, but as you all know, there's nothing that we can do as government officials.
Then we'd even like discourage people for making independent expenditures, so, yeah. Okay.
Yeah, I I think we added as an agenda item for the February meeting, but I mean my instinct is, you know, once folks have had, you know, been in office for a little bit longer and gotten their feet under them, I don't see the harm if, if other commissioners agree, and having you reach out, I mean, we do administer the program, so I think that makes sense.
Okay.
But we'll add it as an agenda item for the next meeting. Alright.
Let make a note. Yeah.
Alright, any other discussion items from any of the commissioners?
Just want to wish Mark Mayo Hardy congratulations on a great career and thank him for his service.
Thank you Mark. And that reminds me, Wayne are so with Mark retiring, are we missing a role then that's looking to be filled?
Yes yes, I'm already talking to HR about getting a hiring process underway, so hopefully I will have these two new staffers won't be the only staff confirmations you do in the coming months. Yes.
Great. Well congratulations to Mark. Before we end, I do want to, Wayne if you could give us a quick update on filling out the roles on our commission, I know you and I spoke, but for all the commissioners, we are a few short and so if you could give us a quick update.
Yes, and when you say short, I'll start with Rich Short's physician. He's a council appointee, so I I'm waiting until next week to reach out to council President Hollingsburgh, just giving her like this week to get her legs under her a little bit. So I'll reach out to her early next week and talk to her about.
The the urgency of getting a council appointment from them. Again, we talked to council President Nelson extensively last year about getting that seat filled and it never happened. For your seat commissioner michaelus and Commissioner Haz, it's the mayor is responsible.
I did reach out to her chief of staff today and I told them that this was today was gonna be commissioner Haz's last meeting. Turns out to be not true, so. But I think in the end though, so I'm gonna, they're, they said they'd have a new general council in place likely soon by the end of next week at least so with that in mind, I'm hoping to reach out to that person and say like, nope, I really need two people, so yes. He said general council for. Okay.
Right. And.
I mean the whole problem, like I said, these times of transition it's really hard because we have a lot of pressing needs, but everybody else has their own needs, so.
And commissioner Pecaylas, this is not your last meeting, correct?
For you? Nope. I'll I'll keep serving and throwing little opinion grenades where.
Needed.
We appreciate it. Always in my direction, you know.
Anyway, we're we're really we're not needed.
Read from the constraints of, you know.
The respectability required of the chair.
So.
And providing Wayne a little extra motivation to find a replacement.
Yes.
Oh, well, we appreciate it. All right, I think that's everything on the agenda, so we will conclude this meeting and our next meeting is 4 February 2020 6th so I look forward to seeing all of you then. Thanks everyone.
Thank you.
Thanks everyone. Thank you. Bye. Bye.