All right, good afternoon, everyone.

The April 9th, 2026 Special Committee of the Libraries Education and Neighborhoods Committee will come to order.

It's 3 02 p.m.

I'm Maritza Rivera, Chair of the Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Foster.

Here.

Councilmember Lynn.

Here.

Councilmember Rink.

Chair Rivera.

Present.

Three council members are present.

Thank you, Clerk.

Please note for the record, everyone, that Council President Hollingsworth is excused from today's meeting.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on the agenda or within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Chair, we have no speakers today.

Then public comment is now closed.

And we'll proceed to our items of business.

Councilmember Rink, are you present?

Checking audio, can you hear me?

Yes, yes, we can.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm present.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

So for the record, Councilmember Rink is also present at today's meeting.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Agenda item one update on four million dollar investment for refugee and community support for briefing and discussion.

Thank you, clerk.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

This is a special libraries, education and neighborhoods committee meeting because, as you know, our recent regularly scheduled land committee meetings had been used for the renewal of the Seattle Public Library levy.

I wanted to hold this meeting today to provide an update on the very important $4 million investment that was given to OIRA in the 2026 budget in support of our immigrant and refugee community in town.

Director Kuvu is here today to let us know how those funds are going to be implemented by her great staff at OIRA in support of our immigrant and refugee community members.

Not just now, for the immigrant community.

For the record, I've had the pleasure of working with Director Vu all the way back to about 20 or 2019 director.

And so lucky, as I said earlier, to get to work with her again.

Do um address backfill for federal budget cuts and also just rapid response, legal defense, which the department already provides, immigrant integration and citizens, uh citizenship support, which the department already provides as well, adult immigrant workforce development and ready to work, which the department's been doing for many years now.

And the reason why I'm pointing that out is because any time a department gets um this size of percentage increase, I want to acknowledge that the department then has to turn around and be able to scale up their operations to meet that um that that extra funding, and that takes time.

So I I just want people to acknowledge that um this isn't something that you could turn around overnight because this is a lot more than you're usually uh managing for in terms of a budget.

So that's important here to note, and what uh it always takes a little bit of time.

Um, and then I really want to also colleagues apologies for not getting the slide deck sooner.

We always strive to get materials as soon as possible.

There was some last minute work on the presentation, but I didn't want to hold up the meeting today because I know that the department's getting go um doing great work, so I wanted to make sure that um we could get you the briefing sooner rather than later, but that meant you didn't have the materials till a little earlier today.

And for that I do apologize, and I thank you for your grace.

Um, all right, so let's get into the presentation.

Director Vu, you can introduce yourself for the record.

I really appreciate you being here.

And then, colleagues, if you have questions, I'll look out for your hands.

Um, you can go ahead and ask questions as we go along because there's a lot of information and a lot of great work, and there are a lot of pieces to this, and I want to make sure you have you.

We we don't have to wait till the end.

Go ahead, Director Coo.

Great.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and uh thank you, Council Members Lynn and Foster and Rink for joining us today.

Um my name is Kuvu.

I'm the acting director of the City of Seattle Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

I am here today to provide an update on our office's four million dollar expanded investment portfolio.

Uh as the uh chair has referenced this $4 million represents a significant increase to OIRA's budget.

Um, and we have a lot of thanks to community advocacy for that, but also support from city council.

And these additional resources will allow OIRA to continue supporting the mounting challenges facing immigrant refugee communities today.

Um for folks who are new to our audience today.

Uh the mission of OIRA is to improve the lives of Seattle's immigrant and refugee communities.

And we do that by advocating for welcoming policies, providing programs and services that improve the health and economic well-being of immigrants and refugees, and doing community engagement, including our ethnic media program.

So I want to start first with uh looking at um the importance of this budget ad and needing to make sure that we not only move quickly but also do it in the right way that reflects community need.

Uh so we've done a lot of community feedback, looked at data and research and all of that to reflect uh council's directive to us, which is to mitigate impacts of federal funding loss and expand or create new programming to support immigrant and refugee communities, including legal services, workforce development, outreach and community navigation services and other critical programs.

So I'm gonna start with this table here.

I had the um opportunity to give a high-level response uh previously, and now we want to drill down a little bit in in the details, which I know that you're interested in.

Uh so we start first with uh the investment areas, which are removal defense.

Um I want to move quickly through this and then spend a little bit of time in giving you more detailed uh information about which each of these investment areas uh looks like.

So for removal defense, uh we have a proposed uh investment of 1.25 million dollars in community grants.

We have uh 280,000, and if there's a surge in 2026, um that will definitely impact um what this investment looks like for 2027.

We have a category uh to support businesses, workers, and social providers at a amount of 500,000.

We have 250,000 for community response for detained families, um, and then additional investment areas that are impacted by federal funding cuts.

For example, the legal orientation program there that's work done exclusively by the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project at the Tacoma Detention Center.

$538,000 of federal funding was cut there.

And our proposal is to fund uh continue funding this work at $140,000.

And this is an amount that's uh prorated for the percentage of detainees who have a direct Seattle tie, which is about 25%.

Federal naturalization funding cuts uh in Seattle uh was approximately $675,000, and this amount reflects uh you USCIS citizenship integration grants lost for several organizations serving people with a Seattle TIE, including ACRS, REWA, and neighborhood house.

Uh this total of USCIS citizenship integration grants lost overall is more than one million per year.

And our proposal is to fund uh these cuts for naturalization at 200,000 for this year.

Um as we keep moving to cuts to federal funds for ESL.

Uh our estimate was that uh approximately 800,000 of federal funds were cut, affecting uh mostly our Seattle colleges.

And um we did receive reporting from North and Central Seattle colleges and are awaiting on information from South Seattle college.

So I expect that that 800,000 estimate was actually much higher, um, which represents lost capacity for serving uh community needs.

So the uh our proposal to support this work at 655,000 dollars gets us closer, but not uh a complete replacement of uh those federal dollars that were cut.

Uh emergency assistance we're looking at leveraging this $300,000 investment.

Uh we'll partner with Seattle Foundation.

They have a goal of raising private dollars to match or exceed this amount.

Um, as you know, uh our office is uh doing the language access work and language justice, uh if you will, and ethnic media.

We have a budget of $75,000 to $125,000 to make sure that we're able to reach as many audiences possible and to involve our important partners in ethnic media.

About $300,000 will go to temporary staffing.

The legislation approves for three positions, two SA strategic advisor, one general government positions, and one uh contracts and grants specialist.

Um we do not need the grants and contract specialist role because uh we have the ability to absorb that additional work, uh, but we will request um one strategic advisor one position, and that position will sunset at the end of the year.

So I want to uh add that and then just step back for a moment here to explain how we arrived at um those investment areas and the amounts.

Um really grounded in the the previous slide that we saw, which is that we did a lot of listening over beginning from the time that um the new White House took place, and we knew that there was going to be a lot of immigration activity.

Uh so we convened our legal programs and did a survey for both uh the legal defense network and our naturalization program partners back in May of 2025 and did another one in March of 2026.

Uh, same thing for our ESL and workforce education partners, a survey, an in-person convening uh in July 2025 of last year, and again in March of 2026.

Rapid response.

That was an ongoing uh discussion because if you recall, the enforcement action started immediately in 2025, and uh that body of work um uh was critical for us to stand up as quickly as possible.

And we did one-on-one engagement um with uh my predecessor, the order director with 23 community partners, uh which I've continued to do in my return to the city.

And as the uh mayor Katie Wilson's administration has taken um uh leadership, uh they felt it was important to also be grounded in the listening and learning from immigrant and refugee communities, and the mayor and her staff held a round table in February 2026.

Uh we took information from her transition team with uh that did two listening sessions and a survey, another ethnic media round table in March of 2026, and then um some really substantive conversations that we've done with our peer jurisdictions in cities such as Boston, Denver, Chicago, Minneapolis, and San Jose, and of course, Chicago and Minneapolis had a lot of um important lessons to share.

So, what did we learn?

Um I want to reflect first on the number one priority that stood out through all of the engagement that we did, and for good reason.

We saw federal policy changes that have led to significant delays in immigration processes and new barriers preventing immigrants in Seattle from accessing things that were not so hard to do before, such as getting work permits or applying for asylum or applying for a green card, becoming a U.S.

citizen and other benefits that come with uh immigrant and refugee status, but those increased requests for legal assistance and migration information due to heightened community concerns about immigration enforcement tractics.

So we see, according to track data uh mapped out to the Seattle subdivision of King County, there are 14,290 cases in immigration court with about 6,266 that are represented by an immigration attorney, and approximately 8,000 without representation.

So effectively almost 60 percent of the cases have no legal representation.

And the data shows also that uh between 2024 and 2025, according to the Seattle Times article dated March 11th, we saw an increase of 152 percent in enforcement, along with increased challenges for communication with detained individuals.

And uh on Tuesday, I had the opportunity to sit with a coalition called Hot Pot for All, uh, which is a group of organizations that serve mostly Southeast Asian um immigrants, but uh many of those come as refugees, and um that community has seen a devastating toll in uh deportations that happened very quickly.

So uh it is not just our members who have uh no documentation, it is members of our communities who are here with status and uh who are being deported and uh not able to see their families or communicate with them.

And what's significant about this is that um 929 arrests were carried out in 2024 among Washington counties, King County saw the highest number of arrests last year, with 1,030 people taken into custody, and nearly half of the King County arrests, about 470 were in Seattle, which to me debunks the idea that Seattle is safe from ICE enforcement.

That is just not true when we look at the data.

And why I will say um Director Wu, I'll take the minute now to say that this um tracks what we heard last year from immigrant organizations, uh defense organizations, um, where the federal funding was uh getting cut, and this was a significant source of concern for the council.

So this um legal um piece is really important, and the point that our um immigrant populations, the ones who are here documented or experiencing issues too, not just the ones that are here undocumented.

So everyone is uh in need of legal defense right now, and so that is an important point to make.

And I don't think that anyone thinks that Seattle there has been an uptick in Seattle.

Um we haven't seen quite the same surge as Chicago and and Minneapolis, thankfully, and again, we don't know what's to come in the future, but I don't think anyone doesn't know at this point that um folks are getting picked up in Seattle.

It there's an increase we've seen.

Yeah, thank you.

And that's important to know.

Thank you.

And while uh this is happening in the legal defense rising as the number one priority, uh we heard a lot of other needs.

Um and so these I wanted to touch on these additional priorities.

We're heard we heard that and we've seen significant cuts in federal funding to immigration integration programs such as naturalization and ESL.

Um we have heard and we have seen immigrants and refugees are deeply afraid of being targeted by federal immigration enforcement, and the impact of that is that uh it is uh affecting people's self-sufficiency, they're afraid to go to work sometimes.

Um when there is lack of income uh that impacts their bottom line to be able to afford basic needs.

There's fear of sending kids to school too, director.

We've heard a lot.

So yeah, I know that SPS is doing a lot of work there.

Additional priorities include uh small community-based organizations that are telling us that they need resources to support residents and workers.

And while we know the these um stories of enforcement at a national level or even regional level, it really drills down also to fear at a hyper local level and people feeling need to support their neighbors.

Um we also heard that there's a need for expanded legal consultations, um, safety planning and response to protocols across business communities, workers, and immigrant serving providers such as food banks.

So that's a general uh overview of um what we've heard, and I want to begin now just giving you a little bit more detail about this and uh expanded investment portfolio.

And we're gonna start first with the the top two, which you see on here legal removal defense and small community grants, because these were the ones that were um the most urgent in terms of standing up and reflecting what we heard as priorities.

So with the removal defense, um this touches our legal defense network, our LDN, and um needing to expand that, and we're we're going to do that through an RFP process.

Uh so this program uh provides legal representation to low-income immigrants who are in detention, facing removal, or in danger of loss because of their immigration status.

So I want to provide a little bit about what the funding details are.

And uh this is available through uh an RFP, and I'm happy to make it available to uh other council members if they would like.

The total funds available are up to an additional 1.25 million dollars.

The contract period begins June 1, and through the December 31 of 2026, this RFP has already been released, and the submission deadline is 5 p.m.

on April 24th.

Eligible applicants must be a nonprofit organization with the 501c3 status.

They must have offices located within Seattle King County and have at least one fully accredited DOJ rep or licensed attorney with at least two years of experience providing removal defense uh uh services.

And they must be committed to offering removal defense services for at least the next five years.

That's a very high bar, but one that is necessary because these cases are taking a long time, and they need to be able to rely on uh representation for the entire duration of their case.

And uh eligible applicants must also be able to commence full proposed services within six months of the contract execution.

Director Vu, can you also and I know part of this is ensuring that these organizations are servicing either residents or Seattle or or folks that have a nexus to there's got to be an access to CAM?

Yes, thank you for for um reminding me uh the these organizations are required to provide services for individuals who have a tie to Seattle, and that means live, work, or go to school here, um, possibly receive services here as well.

And because this is a significant program, we want to be transparent about what the outcomes are.

Uh so there's full representation with this additional investment for a caseload of 500, which effectively doubles the current caseload of 250, um, and that includes unaccompanied children.

Um out of this 250 cases currently, there are an additional benefit to 100 derivatives, which is uh family members.

Um we also through this program uh provide critical qualified immigration attorney services for cases through the very complex and often lengthy immigration process.

And director Vu, would you please share with us that I'd love to put in our newsletters that um RFP so folks know it's open and they can apply.

So I'm happy we're you know I know we would all do so.

Speak.

I see um council member Lynn giving me the thumbs up.

So we'd like love to get the information out wide uh disseminated widely.

So if you share with us the RFP details, we'll put it in our communications too.

We'll do a follow-up with that.

That'd be great.

Thank you so much.

And of course, part of this um director uh on the outcomes piece, you know, the the caseload.

Um this these are all goals, of course, and then with the ultimate outcome of helping folks in our community um be successful in the uh you know as they move through the process here.

So we'd love to hear in terms of outcomes how many folks we were able to help in town, you know, state stay here.

Yeah, we do collect quarterly reports, so I'm happy to share those with any um council members who are interested.

That'd be great because I think it goes to just it would alleviate um our concerns.

Well, some of our concerns not fully, but just it's it's really great to hear that we were able to be helpful, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

So thank you.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Uh we can do that.

Another area that that uh I want to highlight uh, which we also sent out an announcement to the RFP, and uh, if you have not heard it, we will follow up and provide information on this.

Um these are one-time contracts with community organizations or neighborhood groups to offer resources, education, and tools to empower communities in Seattle.

So the acceptable activities to be funded include community aid for basic needs.

Um, this includes meal delivery service or um items in food pantry, basic goods such as baby formula or diapers.

Um we do direct people to existing city of Seattle programs to assist with utilities, rent assistance, and food.

Another acceptable activity is know your rights presentations or community info sessions that can include recent or pending changes in immigration law and policy, which there have been many.

Um it also includes immigrant workers' rights and protections, for example.

A third um activity that this funding will support is family safety planning.

This is typically offered through workshops or clinics and um with an immigration attorney who helps individuals and their families create plans for care of children or other dependents.

Uh, in addition, they also provide legal preparations in the event of the detention or deportation of a parent or legal guardian.

And I know uh some of our community partners have used their discretionary dollars because it's just what was needed by community.

Um El Centro, I know, is doing that and a number of other organizations, and so we can learn a lot from that.

Um, and in fact, um I have recommended to some of our Asian API communities to lean into the expertise that our Latino communities have developed.

Um that's a way that we can learn from each other.

Yeah.

And there was a recent article actually talking about across the United States, um, you know, kids who come home to find their parents have been um detained.

Um, and so having a family plan in place is really important.

It's very sad, and also there's you know, having a plan in place is really important.

Thank you.

Uh so the funding details uh is pretty straightforward.

Because we mean this to be a broad category for the types of activities that the city does not currently support, and that our intention is to reach very small organizations that many of which may not have any experience contracting with the city.

We want to make this easy.

Uh so these will be um applications through PDFs and uh one-on-one phone calls, for example, uh, just to drill down a little bit to understand what the proposed activities are, and that people understand will follow up also with any technical assistance that may be needed for very new organizations working with the city.

The funding details are described here.

The total funds available are up to 280,000 dollars.

I do want to say that where there may be underspending and other parts of our investment portfolio that we have the option to shift some of those resources over here because our expectation is that the need is greater than the resources that we have, and that is true probably across every grant area in the in the city of Seattle.

Each application may be awarded up to 10,000.

And here organizations are still eligible even if they receive city dollars in other areas or other departments.

So we want to make that clear.

The contract period for this is through this calendar year.

This is really important that eligibility is contingent on a nonprofit having 501c3 status, or they may partner with a fiscal sponsor with the 501c3 status.

And we cannot fund cash assistance for individuals.

So that's spelled out in the RFP, but I just wanted to make sure to convey that to you all as well.

Thank you, Director.

And then just what we just want to mention, because a lot of folks aren't familiar with the fiscal sponsors set up.

Some are, some are, and particularly the people watching.

But for these neighborhood groups, if they're not a 501c3 organization, they don't have things set up to receive funds.

So typically, then you work through a fiscal sponsor that is a 501c3, and they know how to help with the applications to the city and all the paperwork and all on the back end things that you have to submit in order to then uh get the the grants and then all the reporting the 501c3 fiscal sponsor then helps with the reporting from the reporting.

That's right.

So just so people know what that meet what that is and how this the neighborhood groups that aren't 501c3s get to be competitive still if they work with a 501c3 fiscal sponsor.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Uh that's right.

So report reporting is a a part of contracting with the city.

Um and uh we want to be transparent about that.

So moving forward, um, the outcomes that we have for the community small grants.

Sorry, Director, one more we have to sorry, Director.

Um you're recognized.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Um on the eligibility, um, you know, the uh some of our unions um uh in particular industries, uh, you know, a majority of their members may be immigrants.

And um we've seen how oftentimes it is our union partners that are kind of a first line of defense for many folks.

Uh you know, there's a news report recently about a UW grad student who um was detained and and it was um the union that rushed down to the airport to you know try to try to assist.

And so I'm just wondering on these small grants.

I I don't think unions are 501c3s.

I just want to if if they're not eligible, could you just talk about a little bit um uh any sort of collaboration or opportunities uh with our union partners?

That's a good question.

Um certainly from the worker angle, there's a lot of collaboration.

And so I'll go back to our group.

Um I know labor unions have a specific labor um tax status, and I don't want to rule that out, so thank you for pointing that out.

Um, and then I'd love to follow up with you to have a more substantive conversation about that.

Um having said that, um, I do want to say that uh our intention is to support very small organizations.

Um, and uh and although unions do do important work, I think given the amount of support or requests that we would expect from this, that that would be applied against um consideration for organizations that have no resources.

Uh so I I want to be um make sure to to to offer that as well.

Right.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's a great question, Councilmember Lynn, and thank you, Director Vu, because a lot of folks don't realize that you know, part of this effort is really there are a lot of folks on the ground who who and a lot of folks that want to help the folks on the ground, immigrant folks on the ground, and and um we want to make sure that we're working with folks that have access to a lot of people that might not know how to get resources and and how to um you know how to access some of these resources.

So oftentimes we find these small community groups that want to be, and sometimes they get squeezed out of the process because they're not used to contracting with the city.

So I think what I'm hearing you say, and what I know from our work in the past together is that the department is also really intentional to make sure that we're providing access and opportunity for some smaller groups that do already help folks in community, but they don't necessarily know how to access city dollars, which is why I bring up the fiscal sponsor piece, because a lot of those organizations aren't necessarily 501c3s, and and they need to be able to have this fiscal sponsor to do the work.

Yeah, yeah.

So I just just pointing out those smaller groups and the importance of of the smaller groups because they're doing so much in community, and they don't necessarily always have the access.

Thank you.

That's what I'm hearing you say.

But you correct me if I'm wrong, Director.

And you know, the the beauty of what we saw in Minneapolis was that uh the decentralized nature of how people came together with with very little resources was admirable.

Um, and we are in such a privileged position to have any amount of money to be able to support uh local efforts.

Yes, but the the other thing is that there isn't a scarcity of, I mean, everyone wants to help, so our labor partners too can come together and refer folks to the department who can refer folks to those smaller organizations too, and have I mean, like we're all working together, so I'm not suggesting we shouldn't work with our labor partners.

Yes, we definitely should because they have access to folks too, and we're all coming together in order to um to provide assistance to immigrant communities.

And and the other thing I would love, and I know this is you know, kind of a tall order, but just outside of this city, there are a lot of folks coming together to also provide assistance, including in our our labor partners are doing so much.

I'd love to hear about that.

We don't always hear what's happening on the ground, and I know there's some other and philanthropy and some other efforts, which is why I think you're gonna work with Seattle Foundation in terms of raising some funds.

Yeah, um, because you know the need is greater than we're able to um to address.

Um, but the city doesn't always hear who who else and what other uh work is being done out there.

I'd love to be able to figure out a way for us to know that, including the great work that our labor partners do in this space because they do a lot, but we don't always hear about it, you know.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

So this next slide here, um, I wanted to share the outcomes that we can expect from uh this body of work, and um, and also to highlight that we do require all grantees to track and report to us the number of events, the topics, the number of attendees and languages served, uh specifically for family safety planning activities.

Uh grantees will report the number of completed plans for basic needs.

Uh grantees will attest to the eligibility of those who are served and provide receipts or financial reports for the type of need.

Um, and that consistent with our concern about uh data and privacy, uh we want to you to know that all of this will be reported to us only in the aggregate.

Yes, really important to note that we are not the city does not collect information, identifying information, no names, address, none nothing of that nature.

We just really receipts don't have names attached to them, but we just need for our reporting um uh our fiscal, our books.

We need to make sure we have the documentation, but it is not to identify individuals or to discourage anyone from coming out to get assistance.

That's right.

Yeah, so thank you.

Uh here's just an example of a reporting template here.

I wanted to share that so that you could see what our community partners will see.

And then the next phase of funding.

So I just talked about the LDN expansion and the community small grants.

Those were the first to be released.

This next phase of funding includes investments that will go out and be announced later this spring, which uh support for a body of immigrant inclusion services.

Um I mentioned uh earlier the federal funding losses that we have seen for naturalization and ESL and the legal orientation program.

Also, we want to uh support the community response for detained individuals and families, and for those who are interested in learning more about this and upcoming opportunities, just come to our uh website.

There's a link here in the slide.

Um then we provide regular updates and resources through our monthly newsletter, our blog and social media.

So please stay connected with us and stay informed.

And that information is here on the screen.

And I will stop there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director.

It's clear you and your team, and thank you to uh to your team, some of which are in the audience.

Nice to see you again, are doing um a lot.

And um I wanna also acknowledge this is only part of the um implementation of these funds.

And since this is ongoing in your budget, you are working on then future years um and looking at how well things are going and sort of did we cover the need that that you know the the what community needs at the moment because you want to be nimble also in subsequent years and address what we're seeing at that at that time.

I mean, we just don't know what's gonna happen in the future that's right.

It's the the landscape is just constantly changing, and we need to be responsive and uh keep taking a look at this, keep listening and pivoting when we need to.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director.

And I hear from and I've spoken with some folks in our immigrant community in town, and they're so grateful for OIRAs and um just the city's collective efforts, and that's always really um, you know.

Um I appreciate hearing that from community because I know we all want to do what we can to help.

Um, colleagues questions, comments.

Councilmember Foster, I see you have your camera on.

Do you want any questions?

Thank you so much, Chair.

I'll recognize you.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, and thank you, Director.

It's always a pleasure to get to hear from you.

Um, I wanted to ask, and maybe you can just send over some of the things that you shared at the beginning of committee uh via email later, because you had some really great points around the cuts to ESOL that you've seen and the cuts to legal defense services.

Um, and so I'm I we've been trying to sort of track those.

And if you're able to send those numbers via follow-up, I think that would be helpful.

I got as good of notes as I could, um, but I want to make sure I got that correct.

And so that would be fantastic.

And then I just I really wanted to say I appreciate the and I wouldn't expect anything less from your leadership, but appreciate the level of attention to detail, particularly around the legal defense and knowing that that's seen significant cuts and hearing more about the prioritization and the way that you all have approached the um the funding amount based on Seattle was really helpful to hear.

So thank you.

No no questions, Chair.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Foster.

Any other comments or questions?

And like I said, colleagues, thank you to my council member colleagues for showing up at this meeting today.

I know it's a special meeting, um, but I thought it was important at this juncture.

The department's been working diligently, and I wanted to provide an important an opportunity to show both to us and to members of the public because I hear from members of the public in general also who very much care about supporting our immigrant um uh and refugee community members in town, and I wanted them to see things are happening and and um the city is offering assistance, and it's important.

I didn't want to wait further, and I know there's more to come, and this is the first of subsequent.

We'll bring you back to committee to give updates on this the next pieces of this and then updates to the pieces you just um introduced.

But thank you for um uh talking about the RFPs, and if you share both RFP uh information, we will share that in our newsletter.

Councilmember Rink, I see you have your hand up.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to quickly add my voice to say thank you for scheduling this special meeting today to get this information out and in the public.

I think that's tremendously important, and I wanted to take a moment to also again thank Director uh Director Vu for your work on this.

I think uh Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs has found a really important balance here of moving with urgency, but also being very careful and thoughtful when it comes to putting together um this proposed plan for the four million.

Just a huge thank thank you also to my council colleagues for those who are on this committee and those who aren't for um making this four million dollar investment ongoing in the budget last year.

And I wanted to take a moment to further thank the OIRA team, Oksana, Osmi, Balexa, because you all have partnered with us when we are engaging in conversation with um a number of community groups, and those are not always easy conversations.

There is a lot of fear, distrust, frustration in community, and I want to thank your team for showing up in those conversations alongside myself and a number of other council offices to really make sure we are hearing the authentic voices and making sure that the subsequent plans for this funding is really informed by what is needed by community.

So I wanted to take a moment to thank you and your team for your careful work and thank you again, Chair, for making time for this committee meeting to get this information out in public.

It's my pleasure.

Thank you, Councilmember Rink.

And I also want to um acknowledge the county.

Um, I I know that the King County executive had a meeting, and and I was um I was grateful to get an invitation.

I think many of us actually to participate where we heard from community members themselves, immigrant and refugee community members themselves, and it's really important to have those opportunities to hear from community directly.

Um so really appreciate partnering with the county on this, who I know is also um giving resources and and trying to um do what they can and the state for that matter.

The governor is also um he cares deeply about this too.

So we are all working and partnering together and supporting our immigrant and refugee um community members, whether it be at the city with the city of Seattle, at the county, and at the state level, and I'm just very appreciative for all our partners who are coming together to help and our own community members, uh residents who are not members of the immigrant and refugee community who are helping as well individually, um giving of their time and efforts, um, including all our food banks in town.

So really appreciate that.

And then Director uh Vu, you've got commute you've got staff members, and so we mentioned some.

I don't want to leave out others.

And so, do you want to introduce who's here and the audience from your team who are doing awesome work?

I didn't even see them come in.

Um starting on the end here from Wilson, Valkisa Tamaami, Asmi Haroon, and then um Joaquin Wee, who's recently joined us to make sure that this all goes well.

Thank you for doing that.

If we're doing any good work, they get credit for it.

And I like to give people credit, and that's why I like to um uh have people named uh by name because everyone's doing great work and people don't recognize the people behind the efforts, and I want to make sure everyone gets um acknowledged.

So thank you for being here.

And let's see, I don't think anyone has any other questions.

Thank you, colleagues.

I so appreciate you being here.

Seeing no further questions, this concludes the April 9th special meeting of the library's education and neighborhoods committee.

Our next line committee meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, April 22nd, 9 30 a.m.

If there's no further business, this meeting will adjourn.

Here hearing no further business is 3 51 p.m.

and this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.