Speaker 3: The Report of the Gender Equality, Safe Communities and New Americans Committee. Agenda Item number eight Resolution 316723. Affirming Seattle City Council's commitment to high quality, locally produced broadcast news to effectively inform the public in the case of emergencies. The committee recommends the resolution be adopted as amended, with councilmembers Gonzalez and Burgess and Swanson in favor of Councilmember Bagshaw abstained.
Speaker 1: So I have Councilmember Gonzales as the chair, but I'll let Councilman Gonzales or Councilmember Swan decide how they like to proceed on this.
Speaker 3: I think since we have some amendments, there's a couple of different ways that we can proceed on this. We can first consider the first, have Councilmember Sawant give a description of the resolution that she co-sponsored, along with Councilmember Herbold, and that we discussed in my committee hearing last week. And then perhaps it would be best at that point to consider the amendments if a council president. You're amenable to that. That's the I would suggest proceeding.
Speaker 1: That makes absolutely good sense to me. Councilmember Swan, she'd like to describe this resolution.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Fresno. I'd like to thank all the activists from ISC and IBEW 46 who were instrumental in bringing us this resolution. They represent workers in television news in general and at King five in particular, where they are involved in contract negotiations at the present time. And thank you, member Gonzalez, for coordinating this through your committee this year as IFC and IBEW negotiate a contract that defends their members, all the workers in the field, they're also being forced to defend the public in general and our rights to locally produced news with social values such as essential emergency notifications. That is because the whole television news industry is changing, and many of these changes are natural, inevitable and even desired. Because as technology changes, I think we need our infrastructure to evolve. Part of the change is the change in the function of airwaves from broadcast television to wi fi. And these are positive reflections of technological advancements. But some of the changes are motivated purely by a drive for greater profit by private corporations rather than for any public good. And that technological changes are being used as an excuse or a cover to bring in undesirable changes. Let's be clear that privatization and consolidating the media by corporate conglomerates has nothing to do with technological innovation. Unfortunately, what's happening is that more and more media companies are being conglomerated into a few mega-corporations. Here in Seattle, King five has been bought by a conglomerate called Tegna Inc. to maximize their profits going five. Tegna is attempting to shift away from professional, locally produced quality news and replacing it with rebroadcasting nationally produced news bits. This is bad for quality unionized jobs at King five, but it is also bad for the quality of the news coverage for the people in Seattle. In particular, we should be concerned about their future reliability and ability to report necessary information during disasters or other emergencies. If this trend continues, especially in the context of the FCC public airwaves auction this summer. To be clear, this is a resolution, and through this resolution, the City Council does not have a legal mandate on Tegna Inc. or any other body to act in public interest. But it will register the formal opinion of the Seattle City Council in support of the workers in broadcast media and in support of the public interest in the media, and in a way that the activists from IOC and IBEW can immediately use in their contract negotiations and in their ongoing struggle. And for this reason, I think it is very important, please, to support this resolution. This resolution passed through committee. And I thank all the organizers, again, who are standing up to powerful media conglomerates for the public good.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilmember Swan. Before we get into the any possible amendments, are there any other comments from the as far as the base legislation is concerned? And Councilman Baxter, I believe you would like to propose an amendment.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. I would move to amend Resolution 31673 by substituting version three for version two.
Speaker 1: Is there a second on the amendment?
Speaker 0: Second.
Speaker 1: There is a second. Okay, so why don't you discuss why you would like to do this and what it sort of adds or detracts.
Speaker 0: All right. Thank you very much. First, I do want to acknowledge the hard work from IBEW 46 and also the I had C 600. And there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that the direction that we're going with this resolution is the appropriate one. But my concern was in being accurate in our language and using the act, the accurate language in the resolution about channel sharing. I am not debating at all by my amendment whether or not amateurs should be providing our network news. Absolutely not. And also, I will be the first to confess that I'm an amateur when it comes to it language. So I asked for some help from one of the experts that I really appreciate. So what I was what my amendments do is clean up language that I want to make sure that the were accurate when we're talking about channel sharing. We recognize that the advances in technology in the amount of spectrum that's required to broadcast a television signal has decreased because of the changes. We also recognize that there is space that was formerly reserved for one television channel. It can now fit multiple channels. So I don't want to debate whether or not the FCC encouraging TV is the appropriate thing to do or whether we've got corporations that are greedy. What we do know is that channel sharing approach will free up spectrum for wireless spectrum that could be used for other purposes. That is my goal and my intention here in the language is simply to be accurate upon the language that is being proposed. Because I do want to make sure that just as we are providing for professional clarity, using professionals when we broadcast that we too are expressing ourselves clearly and accurately in our resolutions.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Any responses or concerns? What would you like to respond to, Councilman? Bank shots, amendment or would anyone else like to speak to it?
Speaker 0: I would like to speak to her, but I wanted to see if other council members want to go before me.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll I'll give a I'll give a shot at it here. Number one is I do appreciate the fact that this was provided by the customers want I think weeks in advance and that she was very transparent in going about it and talked to labor. And one reason why I'm supporting the base legislation is because for me it's all about jobs, it's about local jobs, it's all about the integrity of the reporting process. And so I think that I'm very happy that customers want brought forth the resolution, that the new language is somewhat technical, and I appreciate that. Councilmember Bagshaw went through the great pains of talking, I believe, to our share loss of technology and other technology folks to sort of describe what's happening in the FCC world and what's happening with the spectrum. And I just I'm not comfortable supporting it. So I will be voting against the amendment and sticking with the base legislation unless the chair, in her opinion, feels as though it is neatly aligned with the point of the resolution. But absent that sort of strong endorsement, at least from my standpoint, I'll be I won't be supporting the amendments. But again, I'm all ears from all of my colleagues.
Speaker 3: If I may, and Councilmember Gonzales.
Speaker 1: And I'll let you speak. Sure.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm I'm also not going to support the amendments. I think that while I understand Councilmember Bag Shaw's perspective, as I think I see them reflected within the additional whereas clauses, I do think that the language that is removed from the resolution ends up in a resolution that I think doesn't hit at the heart of what the resolution is intended to address from the advocates perspective, and I think from the sponsors perspective, which is to really put a focus on not just how we do this technologically in terms of what spectrum and what's broadband and all of those other fancy words that I'm going to stop throwing around because I probably am using them incorrectly , but really focuses on the value of making sure that whatever those channels are or whatever those channels may be that they are, that there is a priority placed on making sure that they are not privately owned and that they maintain integrity of the publicly owned broadcast waves. And so I want to make sure that the resolution stays true to what I think that purpose and that intent is, and for that reason will not be supporting the amendments.
Speaker 0: So I have a quick question here and maybe this just to our clerks. I can count votes. Perhaps it would be just better if I withdraw this amendment and we vote on the bass.
Speaker 1: Okay. Well, that could save some debate time. And before I relinquish Florida councilman, she wants to if she has any closing remarks, I want to thank all of the folks that came out or even from Portland for your great testimony and your support. It really means a lot, at least to me. And I'm sure my colleagues, we listen to community members and leaders in these areas and so thank you for being here. Councilmember Swan, you'd like to say any closing words before we take a vote?
Speaker 0: Just that it's really a positive thing when elected bodies hold themselves accountable to working people and not to telecommunications corporations or big business of any kind. So I think this resolution will be a good step forward and help workers specifically in their contract negotiations.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that. Any other further comments from my colleagues? Okay. To be clear, the amendment has been withdrawn by Councilmember Bagshaw and she said she can count votes. Okay, let's proceed. Those in favor of adopting the resolution vote i. I. Those oppose vote no. The motion carries and the resolution is stopped and the chair will sign it. Very good. Agenda item number nine, please. Please read it into the record.
A RESOLUTION affirming the Seattle City Council’s commitment to high quality locally produced broadcast news to effectively inform the public in the case of emergencies.