Remarks by Dan Strauss
15 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 1
- Play at 46:00
“Wonderful. Let me find my notes after what a fun day we've been having so far. Lost my notes, but what I can tell you, my friends, is that I am excited to be your steward through this budget process. There they are. That was the first bullet point. For those of you that were here last year, you know that I shepherded a process of collaboration, of transparency, of us working together. I do that again. I look to do that again this year. We're gonna find out next week what the mayor has and has not included in this year's budget. Year after year, this council has addressed the structural budget…”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 53:46
“Lish said it better than I could say anything else, so I have nothing to add. Thank you. Awesome.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 55:10
“Thank you. Yes. May I, Chair? Thank you. Well done with parliamentary procedure. And I will say, I think we added this caveat during the memo drafting phase when we had before the most recent revenue forecast and before we did the supplemental budget where we had this experience where we asked people to find funding sources. We're still reviewing if that was helpful or unhelpful. And so I appreciate this as a provision this year. I'm not sure we will utilize it. It is something that as we go through issue identification, the first and second round, I can't remember what we call it these days.…”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 57:13
“Already participating in department presentations? Correct. We have a general list. I think we're finalizing it right now. If there is a department that you are highly interested in, please send it our way. There has, over the last decade plus, been a core group of departments that seem to receive more questions than others. What will also occur, like last year, and we need to reconfirm with the budget director that we do this again this year, Last year for the departments that did not present, they still created PowerPoints for us to review. And so whether they are in chambers answering the…”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 58:45
“answer the second question first about departments, and it is based on the departments that have presented over the past years. It's a similar core group of departments. There's not a lot of change there. As far as meeting, this year is a little bit different than the past years, with Labor Day a week later in the calendar than others. So typically, Council Member Kettle was asking, like, why does it feel so intense right now? And it feels so intense because we have one fewer week between recess and the budget starting. All that to say is we are figuring out if we're going to meet with you…”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:00:15
“Yeah, I mean, I have some insight. I'm waiting for next week, just like everyone else, to figure out what exactly, where all of the different movements have occurred and what discrete actions have occurred within departments. So I'm waiting to dig really into the details, but happy to chat with you too.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:00:50
“Yeah. One last thing now that we've had a little bit of discussion for Council Member Foster and Lynn, I will share that we have a six-year look-back document that is really helpful, and I think we should resend that around. This year, we did a better job of having it completed in January or February than And so that looked at last year's budget, that six year look back plus the budget document that we receive helps navigate through where have things shifted over like since the pan just before the pandemic as compared to where we are today, as well as once we enter budget there. are…”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:25:09
“Thank you. There are no more Finance Native Community and Tribal Governments Committees between now and budget as we have shared that time with the Public Safety Committee for its special meeting tomorrow, which does include the Vehicle Resident Assistance Program. As you heard, it's up tomorrow. Tomorrow's briefing will be a further discussion of the bill and Central Staff Issue ID. We're hoping that amendment concepts can be part of it That does require everyone to release confidentiality so that we can start talking about it in public. Also, I'm noticing that we might have a bunch of…”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:32:28
“Council President, just wanted to say thank you for the welcome back note from recess and a little note of appreciation well received. Thank you very much.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 2:47:57
“Thank you, Council President. I'm just checking that we are first going to vote on amending the amendment, and then we will vote on the amendment as amended. Is that correct?”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 2:48:39
“Thank you. I really appreciate this change. I think that it makes good sense, and I'll use this moment to also recognize the fact that tomorrow is Kitty Hall here at Seattle City Hall, where you can adopt a cat from our FAS animal shelter, as well as if you don't want to adopt here a cat, we also have dogs. They are at the animal shelter. Adoptions are available all week long.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 3:09:01
“Thank you. I'm going to address both this bill and the next bill so you don't have to hear from me again. This is the mid-year supplemental bill and the grant acceptance bill. I'm glad that everyone's staying for this really important legislation.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 3:09:17
“Thank you, sir, because right now we are actually funding universal school meals. We're funding the money that Councilmember Rink has allocated to address the transgender migration here to Seattle. We're doing a lot of really important work in this mid-year supplemental, and... there's gonna be a really difficult budget ahead. So please do not think that we are in a paradise yet. We did have a good revenue forecast that came out last week. We had better than expected, but it wasn't good. I'll put it that way. So we're not going backwards, but we're not moving forwards as quickly as we want. I…”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 3:38:31
“Can we finish this meeting? It's 545. I appreciate everyone being here.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 3:41:17
“Thank you. We had a lot of people in the chambers earlier that did not agree with each other. That is what democracy looks like. I just, this has been a long day where we've actually gotten to celebrate towards the end of this meeting. And I couldn't go, I couldn't end the day without also acknowledging that last night there was a man killed at 85th and 24th. He was riding a scooter. He's three years younger than me. It's an intersection. I ride on a scooter through all the time. Colleagues, you know that about 22 years ago, I almost died after being hit by a driver. Our streets have to be…”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026