CITY OF SEATTLE
ORDINANCE __________________
COUNCIL BILL __________________
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AN ORDINANCE creating an Indigenous Advisory Council for tribal and urban Indian engagement; adding a new Chapter 3.75 to the Seattle Municipal Code; and amending Section 3.35.050 of the Seattle Municipal Code.
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WHEREAS, Indigenous people of the lands now known as the Americas have cultivated and stewarded these lands since time immemorial; and
WHEREAS, since time immemorial, the Coast Salish peoples, including Chief Sealth (Seattle) governed the Salish Sea (Puget Sound) region; and
WHEREAS, The City of Seattle, chartered 150 years ago, is built on the homelands of the Indigenous and first peoples of this region; and
WHEREAS, in 1865, The City of Seattle passed an exclusionary ordinance banning American Indian and Alaska Native people within city limits that was in effect until 1869; and
WHEREAS, Indigenous communities have sustained an organized resistance to settler colonialization of these lands and resources for centuries; and
WHEREAS, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognizes that "Indigenous peoples have suffered from historic injustices as a result of... their colonization and dispossession of their lands, territories and resources"; and
WHEREAS, due to this history, in addition to settler colonialism, systemic oppression, and institutional racism, Indigenous people in the United States are subject to disproportionately high rates of structural violence, homelessness, poverty, income inequality, death, and poor health and education outcomes, associated with barriers to access to employment, education, housing, health and mental health treatment, social services, and criminal justice; and
WHEREAS, federal policies of relocation, termination, and forced assimilation have resulted in the relocation of Indigenous people from their traditional lands into urban areas, resulting in separation from family, clan, community, cultural instit...
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