Alright, I'll call to order this 4 March 2026 meeting of the Seattle Ethics and elections commission, present online. We have Commissioner Smith and commissioner Forch. We have vice Chair Bassel is present and myself commissioner Shermer.
Pretty short agenda today, starting with public comment, not expecting any but Cliff has been has there been any public comments submitted? No, they're kind of ok we will go to our 1st action item which is adoption of the revised.
7 January 2026 meeting minutes, have all the commissioners had a chance to review the 7 January meeting minutes? Yeah.
Yes. Any questions or comments by the commissioners? So.
All right, seen none. Can I get a motion to adopt at the 7 January 2026 meeting minutes? Can I get a second?
Second. Second.
Alright, all in favor of adopting the meeting minutes, say I raise their hand.
I, I I'll.
Those say name, NO extension. So the motion passes moving on to 2nd action item adoption of the 4 February 2026 meeting minutes, have all the commissioners had a chance to review the the minutes and are there any questions or comments by any of the commissioners?
Yes, and NO.
Thank you Commissioner Forch. Can I get a motion to adopt the 4 February 2026 meeting minutes?
So moved.
Can I get a second?
Second.
All right. All in favor of adopting the 4 February meeting minutes. Raise your hand or say I.
I.
I'll oppose, say nay.
Alright, the motion classes and the meeting minutes are adopted. We are going to skip over action item three since we're miss missing commissioner Peculus right now, so we'll go to the discussion items, the 1st of which is the DVP levy work group executive director, do you want to give us a quick update here?
Yes. Renee and I met with someone from the council president's office and as well someone from the mayor's office last week as well as somebody from central staff. So we are beginning the process of trying to put together the committee. The 1st order of business was like whether we should accept the request to put together the committee.
And in the end everyone decided yes, it was part of the votered intent, so yes. So that work is going on right now. We're supposed to be like thinking of names and I believe they're gonna be talking to the campaign representative soon. So that's all is underway.
As part of that initial meeting, can you remind the commission, sort of the the general purpose of the work group and what the aims are?
Well, the law established when they put the voucher bet program back on the ballot to be funded again this last year, it included the request that the workgroupy convened to make any recommendations that anyone felt necessary about the future of the voucher program. So that's what we're doing. We're just looking at the program and like considering any updates that people want, which by the way, the commission does as well anyways. After every voucher run, we get together and like, if anybody wants any changes, they can make them. Thanks.
Questions by any of the commissioners? Alright, seeing none, we will move on to our second discussion item with which is the democracy voucher program report. Renee, is this you? Yep.
So, we sent out the stakeholder update and then we released it out to your commissioners because we had some activities starting to occur for today's meeting. So our print vendor did release the.
The postcard that went out to all the kind of like residences at district five, so that was dropped Friday and we have been getting a few phone calls here and there, couple emails, nothing, nothing unusual when we.
Do this kind of a communication. So that went out then we're still on track to get the bachelor's mail by the 16th, started beginning the 16th, and then the inactive postcard will also go out sometime around then.
And I just I wanted to just share this with just a little bit of explanation. So overall the stakeholder report we do share with other city departments typically, some of our stakeholders like county elections, public libraries, and so we just we just send this out as just a general awareness that activity is, is gearing up. We Even told mail room so they can expect.
To have larger items, so that's the purpose of this report in general. So everything's still just on track to get mailed out the week of 16 March and candidates, we do have candidates still, three, they're all in.
Program two of them are qualified and that's where it's at with candidates so far.
You say two week qualified?
Yep, two of the three are qualified. The other is active. 3rd is still an an active participant at this point.
Thanks for the update. Any questions by the commissioners?
No, this is a free timeline. It's exciting times.
And for the record commissioner Packales has joined the meeting.
Hello everyone, sorry i'm late.
We were just going through some of the discussion items, and I think we'll move on to number three, the executive director's report.
Well, I I've been in touch with the council president's office as well as the mayor's office about our need for more commissioners. As you know with mr. McKail is about to rotate off, we will eventually not have enough to adopt rules. So this is why we are really crucially in need. The council president wanted to publicly advertise the opening, which she did, I believe the application period closes this Friday, so hopefully we'll move quite expeditiously after that to get a new commissioner.
The mayor's office is still I've been in discussion about what they're gonna do, so yes. And by the way, we're not the only people having this problem. The PDC is really down to three. There's there are five member commission there are three right now, so they two are teethering at the corp at all times.
Yeah, so there's that. I don't think I have any other things to update you on. I'll be spending a little time away Kerry I'm gonna be going to Florida to visit my mom here later this month and on the palm Springs again at the start of April. Other than that, just keeping this shipment sailing.
Thanks for the update. All right. Well enjoy your vacations. They're well learned. Now that we've got a quorum, we'll turn back to our action item number three, which is the adoption of the calendar year 2025 financial.
Interest statement rule. Wayne, do you wanna give us a brief background here? Yes.
I hope you all know by now that section 4.16 point oh eight oh of the Seattle Missible code says support the financial interstatement filing periods and we are here today to like adopt the rule that establishes who has to file.
Now the law says that you're gonna do that once a year, so this is you're doing nothing differently than you've done before. So we have the list. We are being a little closer with here more with the names this year. There's a lot more focus on like address confidentiality and victims of domestic violence than I've seen in the past, so.
With those in mind, we're trying to limit the distribution of the list, but we do have it. So we're asking you to adopt that list today.
Thanks Wayne. I had a couple questions. Do you know how the public disclosure commission is handling this same situation?
The.
As as far as keeping some of the addresses and names confidential.
I don't know frankly. We could find out for you.
I'd just be interested to see if, if they're taking the same attention to this as as the commission is.
Right, I think there's right now there was, I'm not sure if it survived the cutoff, but there was legislation moving to exempt elected officials addresses from public disclosure in all forums. So there is, like I said, there's a lot more focus these days on privacy of people's confidential information, so personal information.
Right, right. And are you aware of how, you know, other jurisdictions are handling this with the, you know, sort of, I guess new emphasis on privacy?
I'm not really. I'm embarrassed to say that, but I can find out for you if you'd like chair.
Yeah, I'd just be interested to see how other jurisdictions are handling the issue. But I, I do agree, I think it's a worthwhile thing to do and important questions by any of the other commissioners?
So just for my clarification, for the departments that say in progress.
On this list. Oh yes. So the list, so you adopt the list and then we're able to update it from time to time thereafter. So if you if we had to come back and adopt the list every time a new employee was added or dropped, that would be very cumbersome. So.
This is I think we have 36 of the 41 departments that have so far returned in their lists and 13 of the 14 departments that filed the 13 of the 14 mixed missions that filed to turn theirs in, so we've got I think 80 % roughly of what we've seen in the past. Thanks.
Additional questions by any of the commissioners?
Right, I'll ask for a motion to adopt the financial interstatement rule for calendar year 2025.
Summoved.
Is there a second? Second. All right. All in favor of adopting the rule for 2025. Raise your hand or say I.
Hi.
I.
I'll oppose say nay, any extensions? Alright, the motion passes and the financial interest statement rule for 2025 is adopted. That's all we have for today. Pretty short meeting. Thanks everyone for attending. Our next meeting is 1 April 2026, which also happens to be april Fool's Day which is fun. So we'll see you all there at the next meeting except for Wayne who will be on a well learned vacation. So with that we'll conclude this meeting and.
Thank you all again for attending.
Thank you very much.
Thanks everyone. Bye. Bye.