Great.

Fantastic.

The May 27th, 2026 meeting of the Housing Arts and Civil Rights Committee will come to order.

It is 2 05 p.m.

And I am Dion Foster, Chair of the Housing Arts and Civil Rights Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Juarez.

Hi, I mean here.

Councilmember Rink.

Here.

Chair Foster.

Here.

There are three members present.

Thank you.

And let the record reflect that Council President Hollingsworth and Vice Chair Lynn are excused today.

If there is 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 to relate to items on today's agenda or within the purview of the committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

There are no speakers signed up.

All right.

This is our first meeting with no public comment.

With that, then we are going to move right on to our first item of business.

Will the clerk please read items one through three into the record?

Agenda items one through three, appointments 03505 through 03507, the appointments of Kim Guaf Quao, Jay Queen Adams, and David Isaac as members of Seattle Human Rights Commission for terms to July 22nd, 2027 for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Fantastic.

Without further ado, I would like to invite up to the committee table Sebastian Wilson with the Office for Civil Rights, who is going to provide a brief overview of the Seattle Human Rights Commission Commission.

We will start off with Sebastian.

And as he's getting settled, I'll just offer some brief comments.

We do have a short committee today.

We're just doing appointments, and I really want to thank our appointees for stepping up and seeking to serve in these roles on the Seattle Human Rights Commission and appreciate the Office for Civil Rights for your work in leading on this appointment process, as well as to the mayor's office as we've got uh one mayoral appointee and two council appointees.

The Human Rights Commission, as we will just hear in a second from Sebastian, advocates for justice and equal opportunity in our city and is a fantastic partner to this council as we seek to make sure that we are in making progress on civil and human rights.

Um with that, I'm gonna hand it over to Sebastian to introduce yourself and the commission, and then we will hear directly uh briefly from both Kim and David.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

And a heartfelt appreciation to this committee and the council members here.

Each of you have given time and made yourselves available to our commissioners.

You listen to and incorporate their advice in your decisions, and we really appreciate that.

We recognize some great work has happened already with the collaboration with council, and so really just want to appreciate each of you and are excited to continue to watch those relationships develop and grow.

I'd also like to thank Councilmember Foster and your team for your diligence in getting today's commission nominees processed and on the agenda.

Nominees cannot fully participate until they're confirmed by council.

So the faster we're able to turn around their appointments, the more quickly the nominee can contribute their skills and talents to making the positive change that they're so passionate about.

My name is Sebastian Wilson.

I use he, him pronouns, and I'm a strategic advisor with the Office for Civil Rights.

My work is to focus on increasing capacity, providing learning opportunities, and fostering collaboration between our four advisory commissions.

I'm also the acting staff liaison to the Human Rights Commission.

Before we introduce the nominees, I'll provide a brief overview of the human rights commission and the application process.

The human rights commission was established 63 years ago to advocate for justice and equal opportunity.

It led to the formation of the Office for Civil Rights and has been a driving force of progressive change and city accountability ever since.

The work of the commission has always been important and is even more pressing now in our current socio-political climate.

The commission's comprised of 21 seats of volunteer commissioners who live or work in the city of Seattle.

As you may recall from their presentation to this committee on March 25th, the Commission's 2026 priorities are to increase their engagement with the people of Seattle, City Council, and the Mayor's Office, to review policies that may be discriminatory and inform the Office for Civil Rights Director of their findings with proposed solutions, and to partner with other City of Seattle boards and commissions around shared advocacy goals.

In addition to these priorities, their task force's areas of focus are housing and homelessness, criminal legal system reform, human trafficking, and government relations and affairs.

A couple of unique responsibilities that the commission has is to hear appeals to investigation decisions made by our office on claims of discrimination within Seattle City limits.

And they host the Human Rights Day event series throughout the year, which culminates with a human rights day event in December.

All of those events are open to the public, and each of you are invited to attend.

So keep your eyes open to invitations from the commission throughout the year.

And we know that all of this work is not possible without the tireless commitment of individual volunteers who give their time and energy to improve outcomes for the communities of Seattle.

We are currently working to fill vacant seats on the commission and have been recruiting and interviewing applications on a rolling basis.

Applicants participate in two rounds of interviews before a nomination is made.