Mayor Bruce Harrell announced last month that city employees will have their butts back in official city-funded swivel chairs this Wednesday after some employees worked remotely for two years. The Mayor’s directive, however, does not apply to the legislative branch. Despite signaling an end to the pandemic with several rollbacks of COVID-19 provisions, the council has no set date for a return to the office.
Council President Debora Juarez, who, as department head, is responsible for back-to-work policies, told The Seattle Times that she’s working on it.
“My office, in concert with other leaders from the Legislative Department, labor and city departments, are continuing to discuss the council’s return to office. We’re emphasizing safety, fairness, work-life balance, and operational effectiveness,” Juarez said in a statement.
The unions that represent workers in the city’s legislative branch are still ironing out the details for the council’s return, but, according to Juarez, the department will release the plan in the near future.
Each council office will have the flexibility to set their own rules, according to Councilmember Andrew Lewis. Lewis works in person regularly, as do many other council members and staff. He said because he is not high-risk, he is comfortable going back, but will likely allow his staff to return on a hybrid model.
Not everyone seems as eager to breathe on each other as the Mayor is.
“I am nervous about returning to the office,” Councilmember Tammy Morales said in a phone interview Monday. “I am not comfortable. My staff is not comfortable with the idea of a bunch of people cycling through our office without masks.”
Seattle’s mask mandate ended last weekend with some exceptions and allowance for spaces to make their own rules. According to a spokesperson from the Mayor’s Office, the City plans to lift mask requirements inside government buildings on April 4.
Morales said some of her staff members are immunocompromised or have small children who cannot get vaccinated. But to prepare, she and her office have generated a few ideas to mitigate the potential risks of going back to the office: meeting outdoors, hosting smaller meetings, or continuing a less formal mask requirement.
Throughout the pandemic, other sectors have voiced some of Morales’s same concerns. However, many essential workers such as teachers, bus drivers, and grocery store workers, were forced to work in-person during far more dangerous points in the pandemic and for much less compensation than City employees enjoy. While some of the council is not sure if the hazard is over for its members, it certainly thought the hazard was over for grocery workers in December when it voted to end the industry’s $4 hazard pay from the comfort of a remote meeting.
The council changed its tune after the former Mayor vetoed the bill in response to the Omicron variant surge. However, Councilmembers Sara Nelson and Alex Pedersen stood by the council’s original decision to end the extra payment for grocery workers.
Nelson, who cited improving COVID-19 metrics when she voted to end hazard pay, is ready to end the council’s pandemic provisions as well.
“Since January 3 my staff and I have been at City Hall serving my constituents from the office every day. I understand Council President Juarez has labor agreements to work through, and I respect that process,” Nelson said in an email. “Ultimately, I believe that a return to the workplace is key to downtown revitalization and that City Hall should be a leader in that effort.”
Regardless of when the council returns to work, some council staff speculate that public meetings will return even further down the line.
From the tree-people with their freaky yet charming songs to the lefty hecklers, Seattleites historically have used public meetings as a tactic to put pressure on the council. The council did not always take kindly to the activists who loudly advocated against imprisoning children or building the most expensive police station in the U.S.A. When Harrell served as council president, he, like others, emphasized civility and asked security to remove crowd members he deemed too rowdy. Now, the worst the council can do is finger-wag at Councilmember Kshama Sawant for bringing up unfavorable voting records or, worse, for calling her colleagues the D-word (Democrats).
Barbara Phinney is a seasoned-public commenter who often phones into the council to support Sawant’s measures. Phinney said she missed the power of the public meetings when she would show up to City Hall with Socialist Alternative to pressure the council.
“The Democrats have attempted to make maximum use of working people not being able to come to City Hall during the pandemic,” Phinney said, adding that the Democrats on council acted like the Zoom era defeated Socialist Alternative’s struggle to tax Amazon.
In that spirit, Lewis said the Tree Murder Song does not have the same punch online.
While eager to dunk on Democrats, Phinney, due to health concerns, said she is not ready to go back to in-person meetings, a position she called “privileged.”
Lewis said it is important to follow the science when it comes to returning to in-person meetings. While remote meetings presented some barriers, if the council moves in-person before the general public is ready, it could hamper participation again. Lewis suggested the council adopt a transitional hybrid model with both in-person and remote public comment.
But for Phinney and other City Hall regulars from the Before Times, the timeline for in-person public comment’s return is still unknown. I wrote to Juarez’s office and I will update if I hear back.
