Remarks by Dionne Foster
24 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 1
- Play at 7:57
“That was very well said. And it's an honor and a pleasure to be here today to sign, as the mayor signs these resolutions. I was really proud and pleased to co-sponsor these resolutions with Councilmember Rink. And on the heels of your description of what they do, I want to talk about why. And I want to talk about it a little bit more personally. I love sports. But I'm not really good at playing them. But my mom, being a great mom, made me play basketball in fifth grade. And my fifth grade basketball team won exactly one game. It's OK. Yeah, I'm OK. I'm OK. I'm here today.”
City Council · Oct 19, 2026
- Play at 8:44
“But I learned a lot of things. I learned how to lose. I learned how to communicate. I learned what I'm made of. I learned how to get through really tough situations. And I'm glad I had that experience. I don't want to say it was that experience that led me here today to be a Seattle City Council member. But who knows, right? Who knows? I don't know. But what I can say is that every kid deserves the opportunity to be really bad at sports. Every kid deserves the opportunity to play. Every kid deserves the opportunity to have that collegiality, to have those lessons that you learn, to build that…”
City Council · Oct 19, 2026
- Play at 2:53
“Thank you so much, Council President, and so excited to start today off with the presentation of this proclamation. I want to share my gratitude to Mayor and the rest of the Council for signing this and establishing today, September 15th, as Clean Air Day for Blue Skies. I also want to express my... Yay! I want to express my deep gratitude to former State Representative Velma Valoria and the King County International Airport Community Coalition, who advocated for this proclamation in order to bring more attention to air pollution and other aviation-related health risks. that are facing our…”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 1:01:45
“Thank you so much, Council President, and I believe I see Director Larson coming up from the back. Colleagues, I'm so excited to bring forward the appointment of soon-to-be Director Larson for the Office of Housing. One of the things that stood out to me when we had Director Larson's appointment in committee was the broad uh broad support that she enjoys from community we heard a little bit of that today from some of our public commenters but from the years of experience um i feel like i've gotten to know her resume quite well you know whether that was before coming to the city working…”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 1:06:50
“Thank you. I'd like to thank Council Member Rink for sponsoring it and pass to her to speak to this as a sponsor of the bill.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 1:10:00
“Thank you. Thank you so much, Council President. I want to again express my gratitude to Council Member Rink for sponsoring this legislation and just echo what Council Member Rink already said about what we heard in committee. That was, I think, one of the most moving and community-spirited committee meetings that we've had in the Housing, Arts, and Civil Rights Committee. I know a lot of the folks who came to the committee are here today. I just want to take this opportunity again to thank you for your organizing, for your advocacy, and for your vulnerability. It truly is making a…”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 1:49:53
“Thank you so much, Council President, and thank you, colleagues. I'll start with saying thank you, Council Member Rivera, for the convening that you pulled together earlier this year. I know my staff was able to participate in part of that. And I think, you know, for me, coming into this conversation today, I have been thinking a lot about actually some of the same things that Council Member Lynn said in terms of gun violence in our community. and the disproportionate impact that it has. The gun violence, whether it's in South Seattle, whether it's at Seattle Center, whether it's in Belltown…”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 2:20:22
“Thank you so much, Council President, and thank you, colleagues, for engaging in this conversation around these ballot initiatives that I believe are dangerous for children and families around Washington state. One thing that is important to me as a parent of a school-aged child is knowing that my kid has access to safe adults. I count myself as a safe adult as a parent, but for all kids, that might not be the case. It might be a school counselor. It might be another trusted person at school. And this initiative removes protections that could result in our kids not feeling safe talking about…”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 2:35:54
“Thank you so much, Council President. Thank you, colleagues. So as we move on to this discussion about the other initiative that's going to be on the ballot, I will share first, I am somebody who is not very good at sports. When I was a kid, I was made to play basketball for a season, and we won exactly one game. And I learned a lot during that season, built a lot of character, as my mom told me. And I would say, carry with me some lessons from that that I have today. And when I think about that experience, I think every kid deserves the right to play. Every kid deserves the right to have…”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 53:57
“Thank you so much, Council President. Thank you, Budget Chair Strauss and central staff. Really appreciate your work. I just wanted to clarify on the potential for self-balancing amendments. I know this is something the chair spoke to as a possibility a few months back. I think I heard you say still a possibility. So it sounds like we'll be hearing more about that, but not a certainty at this point. Is that correct?”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 54:58
“Okay, fantastic. So it sounds like if we are going to need to do self-balancing shortly after that is when we'll hear that. Is that a look to the chair through you, Council President, if that's okay?”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 56:41
“Thank you so much. And, Council President, if I've got a few... Okay, fantastic. That's very helpful. The only other question I wanted to ask, I heard you say, you know, if there's a department that we feel passionate about presenting, to make sure that we share that information with... Was that with central staff or with the chair?”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 57:00
“Fantastic. And I assume there's some, bear with me as my first budget rodeo. Chair, do we have a list of who you're already anticipating or should we just send you our priorities?”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 58:02
“I won't send you an email that says all of them. Okay. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council President.”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:03:33
“All right. Thank you so much, Council President. I'm really excited to bring forward this proclamation to establish September 15th as Clean Air for Blue Skies Day. And I want to first start off with thanking former State Rep Velma Valoria, who, as many folks know, is a longtime advocate for environmental justice alongside the King County International Airport Community Coalition. Those folks reached out to my office to help bring more attention to air pollution and other aviation-related health impacts to communities, particularly in South Seattle. As we all know, Georgetown and South Park…”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:30:10
“Fantastic. Thank you so much, Council President. Thank you, colleagues. I'm really excited to give some updates. So tomorrow at full council, we will be voting on the confirmation for the new Office of Housing Director, Kelly Larson. Really excited about that. thanks to my colleagues on the Housing Arts and Civil Rights Committee for unanimously voting Kelly's appointment out of committee. I am really looking forward to confirming her tomorrow. I also want to express my appreciation to Council Member Rink for your bill that we are just so excited about in terms of In terms of providing…”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 2:28:12
“I cut my mic. Thank you so much, Council President. And first, I want to express my appreciation to Mayor Wilson and her team, especially Karim Levitas, who has spent a lot of time with our office and a lot of time leading on this work. I want to also express my appreciation to HB Harper from Council Central staff and Sage Lawrence from my team for their leadership. Thank you to the many community members, to the Stay House, Stay Healthy Coalition, to the folks at Seattle Humane, Washington Housing Alliance, the small and large landlords and housing providers, all of whom have taken the time…”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 2:49:21
“Thank you, Council President. Are you asking for our comments on the amended amendment now, or are you asking for us to hold those until later?”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 2:49:32
“Okay. Thank you. I will be brief in my comments on the amended amendment. Council Member Cattle, I appreciate the verbal amendment that you're making today. I do intend to support the verbal amendment that you are making, but I do not intend to support the original amendment, and I will save my comments for the original amendment when we go to that.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 2:51:06
“Thank you so much, Council President. First, I want to express my appreciation to you, Council Member Kettle. I know you don't sit on the Housing Committee, but I do want to appreciate you and your office for being responsive and communicative around the ideas that you had around the... the underlying legislation, and just thank you for your transparency and collaboration there. And again, for the dialing in in committee today. For me, one of the important parts of this conversation is that we are still allowing the ability for landlords to use damage deposits as well as to recoup any fees to…”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 2:57:43
“Thank you so much, Council President. So this is a clarification and an update to an amendment that I brought to committee. The spirit of this is that we wanted to ensure clarity that SDCI has the authority to seek voluntary compliance. That's authority that was already provided to them elsewhere in our code. However, we codified that, bringing it into this portion of the code, and we did that in an amendment in committee. We had some ongoing engagement with community members following passing this out of committee last week, and I am bringing forth this amendment to offer a couple of…”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 3:05:33
“Thank you so much, Council President. I actually want to just turn back to Council Member Kettle and just say this to the public. The work that our office did on what was Amendment 3 and then was Amendment E today was made better by Council Member Kettle's office. And I'll say there's things that we disagree on. And when we disagree, we disagree. And the things that we agree on, I have really appreciated your partnership. And I want to acknowledge that because Council Member Kettle was not a member of that committee, we weren't able to add his name as a co-sponsor. But I do think it's really…”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 3:17:23
“Thank you, Council President. I will be brief. I just wanted to express my gratitude to Council Member Lin for his leadership on this work. And Council Member Lin, you already mentioned earlier this year we had many folks come in from the North Rainier neighborhood and talk about the needs in their community, particularly around Mount Baker. And it was a real privilege to get to join you in one community meeting in Mount Baker and one community meeting in Rainier Beach. And I just think your leadership has been fantastic. And I really want to express my appreciation to you for bringing this…”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 3:24:54
“Thank you so much, Council President. I will be voting no on this amendment. I believe that the use of these dollars for the purposes as they were allocated in the committee to ensure that we have timely responsiveness and folks on the ground in the neighborhood is a strong use of the funds, and I look forward to seeing the impact of that amendment. Thank you so much.”
City Council · Aug 11, 2026