Select Budget Committee Session II 10/15/25

The October 15 Select Budget Committee meeting will come back to order.

It is still 1.30 p.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council President Nelson is excused.

Council Member Saka?

Council Member Solomon?

We just had Council Member Solomon.

We are going to be at ease for just a moment.

If there's no objection, we will be at ease.

We have Council Member Hollingsworth with us now.

So let's start this again.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council President is excused.

Council Member Saka.

Council Member Solomon.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Council Member Juarez.

I don't have volume.

I can't hear.

Is it just me?

Hang on.

We're having some technical difficulties.

If there's no objection, I'm going to put us at ease for just a moment and we'll come back to this in just a minute.

Son, do you have any idea what might have happened to our sound?

We had it a minute ago.

The remote.

We're going to be in recess and so we'll call upon you when we're back and ready to go.

I can hear you now.

I can hear you.

I don't know about the other two council members.

Yes, I can hear.

Let's try this again.

Masters of our own destiny.

Got it.

That's right, Council Member Juarez.

We're just going to stay in recess for a couple more minutes and come back.

to be predictable and consistent with what we've said.

Seattle Channel?

I believe they are.

Are we on Seattle Channel?

I believe we are.

Yeah.

Seattle Channel?

All right, I'm going to call the roll.

Hang tight.

Seattle Channel, are we on?

Are we broadcasting?

Yes.

Okay.

Getting confirmation that we are.

I thought we had stopped for the recess.

With that, the October 15th, 2025 Select Budget Committee meeting will come back to order.

It is now 1.36 p.m.

Council President Nelson is excused, and thank you everyone for your patience as we fix those technical difficulties.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Saka?

Here.

Council Member Salomon?

Here.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Present.

Council member Juarez.

Council member Kettle.

Here.

Council member Rink.

Present.

Chair Strauss.

Present.

Council member Juarez.

Thank you.

I'm here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Seven present.

Thank you.

Welcome back colleagues.

The fourth item on the agenda today is a presentation on the issues identified by central staff in the Seattle Department of Transportation.

Clerk, will you please read the short title into the record?

Agenda item four, Seattle Department of Transportation.

Briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

We are joined by, again, Calvin Chow of Central Staff and Director Ben Noble.

And if you have opening remarks before you want to get into your presentation, please feel free.

Not necessary.

Colleagues, I'm gonna take questions as we go through the presentation.

So Council Member Sokka, if you've got anything that you'd like to share as chair of the committee overseeing the department, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Excuse me, in the interest of time, I have some pointed questions and comments that I'll make after the presentation.

But I will say that I appreciate the central staff analysis memo that was sent.

Great work there.

Mr. Chow, Director Noble, very helpful and insightful.

And so I look forward to diving deeper into the details during the presentation today.

No further comments, Mr. Chair.

Thank you.

Over to you.

Council members, Calvin Chow with Council Central Staff, and I'm here to present my analysis of the SDOT budget proposal in front of you.

Just as an opening statement, I just note that really it is largely consistent with the 2026 endorsed budget with a few additions that are more driven by mayoral priorities that I'll go into a little more detail.

The first slide is just showing a summary of the spending in the operating budgets.

You'll see that there is a 3% change from the endorsed, and this is largely driven by the increased spending of program for the downtown activation team, for participation on the graffiti interdepartmental team, as well as some additional funding for enhanced permit enforcement.

There is also additional subsidy for the Seattle streetcar.

as well as an additional amount of money to help support deployment of non-school zone speeding cameras and 1.8 million of operating funds to support the FIFA World Cup in 2026. On the capital side, the budget is largely consistent with what we expected for 2026 endorsed as well.

It is in keeping with the levy proposed spending.

And the major changes are tied again to FIFA World Cup.

There's $1.8 million for right of way improvements.

There is $2 million for removable vehicle barriers at Park Place Market, and there is a number of additional resources allocated to the Sound Transit 3 work related to the expansion of light rail to West Seattle and to Ballard.

I include this slide mostly just to show the variety of funds that SDOT uses to fund the different expenditures out of that department.

And the important thing to note, I guess, is that we do see an increase in general fund overall, despite the fact that there have been some reductions that they took as part of the overall balancing strategy that the mayor proposed.

The priorities for graffiti, for FIFA, and others have increased the general funds support to SDOT.

Yeah, that's I guess the main thing I wanted to say there.

So I can be pretty quick for the rest of this presentation in terms of my policy considerations.

I do not have a lot of options for you.

These are mostly contextual issues to make sure that you have a sense of what's going on in the SDOT budget.

A lot of these issues will really result in decisions that will have to be made next year.

There's some decision points.

They aren't necessarily tied to this year's budget, although there are things that you consider in terms of affecting those things.

But as I go through these issues, you'll see that they are largely contextual and paint a picture of what the SDOT budget looks like right now.

So the first issue I wanted to raise is the overarching budget sustainability as it relates to transportation.

We spent a lot of time this morning talking about the general fund and PET.

A lot of those issues are reflected in the transportation revenues as well.

So SDOT's 2026 budget is balanced, but they do face the same types of inflationary cost pressures, and they are seeing the same type of slow recovery in transportation revenues.

The fund balance for the transportation fund is projected to be a $49 million deficit in 2027. I wanted to remind folks that there was a transportation funding task force called for in the 24 transportation levy.

So that recruitment will take place at the beginning of next year and the final recommendations for that task force are anticipated at the end of 2027. The intent for that I think is to try to help chart the path for the broader range of transportation revenues as I showed in that previous slide.

There are a number of different revenue tools that are available for transportation and we have dedicated a lot of them to specific purposes.

So this would be an opportunity to think through how those work in tandem for the broader transportation picture.

The second item I wanted to raise for your attention is the Seattle streetcar operations and the cost to support.

Most transit in the United States does not, ridership does not necessarily pay, fares do not necessarily pay for full operations, and they're supported by general government.

In this case, the streetcar has had other Agencies supported the operations over the past, and so the operating subsidy is now increasing for the burden paid by the city.

So for 2026, the streetcar operations are going to require $13.6 million of subsidy for the continued operations.

This is largely driven by the expiry of the Sound Transit contributions.

They paid for the construction of the First Hill Streetcar and committed to a 10-year payment of $5 million per year to support the operations.

That agreement ended in 2024, so we are paying a higher cost to continue operations in the First Hill Streetcar.

and you'll see there's just in general also increasing costs of subsidy for both First Hill and First South Lake Union.

The third item I wanted to raise your attention is the Seattle Transit Measure.

This is a voter-approved 0.15% sales tax that currently supports transit service and access to low-income transit.

It generates a little bit more than $56 million next year.

This sales tax is set to expire in April of 2027, and so it would require authorizing legislation next year in order to make it for the November ballot if you wanted to continue that tax.

The city does have the authority to ask for up to a 0.3% sales tax, and under that same authority could also ask for up to a $50 vehicle license fee.

Those could be used for transportation purposes in general, not just transit.

So that is a choice that will have to be made next year as well.

The fourth item is related to automated camera enforcement.

Last year, the council approved expansion of the school's own camera program which basically doubled the number of school zone cameras to 37 new cameras at 18 additional locations.

That work is still ongoing.

There is money in the 2026 budget to continue that and full deployment is anticipated next year.

There is also a proposal to expand general speed zone cameras.

This is under the new authority that the state provided and that this council deliberated some this past year.

The proposal is for 20 new cameras at up to 10 locations with that deployment also happening in 2026. The proposal includes one FTE that would manage all the SDOT camera programs.

The fifth item is related to transit ambassadors and transit security.

So this is some items that the Council put into the 25 adopted budget.

The Council added a proviso on $1 million for transit ambassadors and the King County Behavioral Team.

The ambassadors were deployed in 2025 for the University District and for Raider Avenue, but no funding was used for the Behavioral Health Team.

The 26 proposed budget does not include dedicated funding for these purposes.

In addition, you added a proviso on $1 million for transit security and that transit security was deployed on the Third Avenue and Jackson transit corridors in 2025. The 26 proposed budget does include $1 million as was directed in the 24 transportation levy.

The sixth item is the district project fund.

About a month ago, the council approved legislation that endorsed the operating procedures for this fund.

This is a $7 million in 2025 and $7 million in 2026 to support district priorities or transportation safety.

and to respond to the priorities directed from the district council members.

I just wanted to highlight that there is no ongoing funding yet identified for this program, so currently it still shows unsecured funding in 2027 and beyond.

And the last item I wanted to raise for your attention is citywide engagement on the Sound Transit 3 project.

The mayor's office has designated the Office of Waterfront and Civil Projects in Sound Transit as the sort of main city body to do that work.

That office reports directly to the mayor's office but is housed within SDOT and it's taking on this work as the work on the waterfront obviously is wrapping up as that project is successfully completed.

I will note that Sound Transit is going through their enterprise initiative and really is trying to grapple with the financial constraints that they are under.

They will be looking at capital cost savings for these projects that could include things like scope reduction in terms of how far they expand and what stations they provide.

They are going to look at operational cost savings and they are going to look at financial capacity.

So the resources that the city has set aside is really twofold.

It's to help work on the project as Sound Transit moves forward, but it's also to keep track of the work that Sound Transit is going through to understand what their project changes will be and how that affects the city.

And with that, council members, those are the issues that I've raised in my presentation and happy to talk to any of them in detail.

Thank you, Cal.

I've got a number of questions, but I'll turn it over to Councilmember Saka first, should he like to go with his aforementioned pointed questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Chow, again, for the presentation here.

It's very clear that we are in very challenging budget environment, even with the Seattle Department of Transportation, inclusive of all their various color of money issues, eight plus funding sources, our budget challenges are persistent and they remain.

But I have a few questions, just want to dig in a bit into their presentation because it highlights a number of opportunities potentially or priorities for me and my office as we think about you know, this budget.

So automated traffic safety cameras.

As you noted, last year council specifically authorized and appropriated funds to allow the city to deploy non-school speed zone cameras in addition to the the cameras that were included in the executive's original proposed budget for school zones, specifically for school zones, and we added another $1.18 million for non-school speed zone cameras.

And as of today, the deployment of these cameras have run into some challenges and have greatly, significantly slowed deployment.

and had a productive conversation offline directly with SDOT Director Emery about this.

And there's a lot of dependencies at issue, third-party dependencies with contractors, et cetera.

But it remains a goal that we work quickly to expedite deployment of these cameras, both school zone and non-school zone cameras, enforcement cameras as well.

We talked about when I met with the director, we talked, we aligned on an initial kind of timeline, high level for a phase deployment of some of the non-school speed zone cameras, more details need to be worked out by the department, but high level, H1 of next year at some point, the first half of next year.

All that notwithstanding, just curious, Cal, can you help better understand, are there actions, specific actions through the budget that could be utilized to better encourage a more expeditious rollout of non-school speed zone cameras.

And given the ongoing kind of struggles and challenges, a lot of it tied directly to unfortunately some third party dependencies, but what else could be done potentially here?

I've actually taken this one on directly and in fact engaged Director Emery and some of her staff to get some information not unlike I think you did as well, because I wanted to get an overall perspective on this, because I know it is an area of interest.

And my sense is that this is not a funding issue, so in terms of the budget itself, I don't actually see it in appropriate tools to move them forward.

I think my understanding of the narrative, if you will, is in part that The reality is that the contracts were let through SPD.

They have less experience in implementing capital projects and in assisting third parties to implement capital projects, and that as things didn't develop as quickly, SDOT stepped in and have lent some of their expertise and experience to the overall city effort, and that has led to the timeline, the revised timeline that you're describing, and a revised approach where the city itself is taking more direct steps with the third-party contractor.

So it appears, and they are the one entity that is doing this, and they are contracted to do it.

It does not appear to me to be a funding issue, but more about a coordination issue and, candidly, end of the day, the capacity of that third party to deliver.

And this is always a judgment, but based on my interactions, I don't have any sense that SDOT is less than committed to trying to get the work done and done as quickly as possible.

So I don't see that there's a need to sort of motivate them, which might be a tool you would try to use.

So honestly, as frustrating as it is, I don't see that the budget process is a way to advance the timeline.

And that's sort of a painful conclusion, but an honest one.

Thank you for that and I've had the pleasure of speaking directly with SPD chief Barnes about this as well, like probably a few days apart from my conversation with SDOT director and they are certainly committed.

SPD for clarity plays a very limited role in related to the actual rollout and deployment of these.

They have a, once the infrastructure is already there and in place and permits and grants and built in there, They review the footage and issue tickets.

So their role is not nothing but not as great as SDOT.

And for what it's worth, I was curious about this issue as well, that the contract was let through SPD because the sense is that once the cameras are up, there is an ongoing relationship with the contractor to make sure about where they are, that they're directed the right direction, all that kind of stuff.

And that's really SPD's work.

The implementation, so they have the contract.

The implementation side is not an area where the relationship to SPD is as obvious and where they don't have as much expertise.

And it's taken a little bit, but the executive has come to that same conclusion and is working now, created a team between SDOT and SPD to get the work done.

And again, that is by way of explanation, not excuse, if you will, but my understanding.

for a little history, the expansion of camera programs in the last decade or so has been much, much smaller than what is contemplated in the last two.

We are talking about doubling the school zone cameras, adding 20 cameras for this new speed zone program.

In the past, it had been things like four transit cameras.

It had been a much smaller scale of implementation.

The last ones had been a little more focused.

West Seattle Bridge response had been the last, the other last one that I remember in terms of having camera enforcement to help support getting people while preserving the lower swing bridge for high capacity and transit.

So the scale of the implementation appears to have caused some of the choke.

No, I totally understand that and which is why I am, I'm interested in helping to provide a solve for this because, to your point, there is a significantly greater scope and scale of the proposed deployment, unprecedented in Seattle's history.

That said, the executive is still struggling to deploy its own set of doubling the school's own cameras, let alone our council additions.

We need to have some sort of realistic expectations on timing and say what we're gonna do and do what we're gonna say.

So in any event, thank you for that.

Wanna pivot to talking about transit safety and security.

So last year, as you noted, council supported new investments to keep people safe in and around our transit services.

This includes requesting that SDOT provide a report on improving transit security from a city perspective, $1 million in transit security, specifically for transit security, talked about how that money was spent.

$1 million from the Seattle transit measure funding for the ambassador program, talked about where that money was spent.

Also left room for the King County's new behavioral health team to deploy alongside, and it sounds like that money was not spent.

Can you provide any insight onto where the $2 million in investments was spent?

Well, specifically the behavioral health team, any indication, any initial indication on why that might have been unspent or where that money is now?

The proviso for 1 million was allowable for either transit ambassadors or the behavioral health team or both.

And it appears that it was spent functionally on transit ambassadors.

So the money was spent and focused, the report I have is that it was focused on deploying those services in the university district and in the southeast.

Got it.

So through the budget last year, council indicated a strong preference for better bolstering our transit safety and security, including through presence of a variety of different folks, social workers and the behavioral health teams, ambassadors, wayfinders, navigators through security.

And so in your overall assessment of transit security, did you find that SDOT was performing these various functions

These are pass-through functions.

The delivery of these services comes from King County Metro.

It's part of their delivery of service and deployment of transit ambassadors as well as transit security staff.

So we have an agreement with King County to purchase additional transit service hours.

We've been able to support that with the funding that's been identified here to help get emphasis areas and areas that are of city concern, but they are not city deployed services.

They are supporting the broader transit agency.

Yeah, great point.

The city is not the one staffing or operating these We operate two transit agencies in Seattle.

Well, kind of.

There's nuance there.

But we contract directly with the providers, in this case King County Metro or Sound Transit, who in many cases subcontract some of that work as well.

But we do have a financial role and responsibility into that situation.

exploring other opportunities to...

I think we did some good stuff last year.

Colleagues, as you know, right after we did that, added that $2 million, I think, total of investments to boost transit security.

King County Metro bus driver Sean Yim was tragically murdered while doing his job.

And I think that spawned a wake-up call for a lot.

I think a lot of us were...

were talking about the issue for a long time and that unfortunately helped the broader effort get more traction and build more momentum and culminating in a task force that created a report with dozens and dozens and dozens of recommendations on how to specifically boost transit security in our region.

We as a region, as a city, will need to do our part to help implement those great things.

All I have to say is I'm just thinking about how our city can best be positioned to do exactly that.

Moving on to scooters.

So scooters, e-bikes and gliders have become ubiquitous in Seattle.

It is my understanding that there is ongoing work to create scooter corrals and hotspots around our city.

So designated parking locations with painting and signage as needed where people can park scooters.

helps drive accessibility and my understanding there's an effort to get as much of this infrastructure in place as possible, permanent infrastructure, bless you, ahead of World Cup next year.

But there's also some concern in the community that my office is hearing is that the work is not moving quickly enough I note that in your central staff analysis memo, Cal, I note that there is a $500,000 cut in the executive's proposed budget to SDOT's marking and signage signs division.

And again, in the executive's proposed budget, what do you assess is the likely impact of our city's ability to deploy corrals like this, scooter corrals like this given that cut?

I'll have to go and ask for some follow-up about the connection.

I'm not clear that that cut in the signed maintenance program is tied specifically to the deployment of corrals.

We do charge permit fees for the ability to deploy scooters in Seattle, and those permit fees do help pay for things like the deployment of corrals.

I know it has been a slow deployment.

You've seen the painted on, spray painted versions of here's where the corral shall be, with slowly they're getting to deploying those.

Incidentally, I will note that I've seen people use them even in that sort of preliminary condition.

but I'll have to get back to you about the status of how deployment is going.

Sure thing.

We'll stay tuned.

Thank you.

No further questions, comments right now, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle and Council Member Sullivan.

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to Mr. Chow for the presentation and Director Noble as well.

Just looking through this, I really appreciate the rundown and, you know, the policy considerations.

I recognize the revenue that, you know, that first point, particularly with our inflationary world in which we're in right now, which could get worse due to federal actions.

and then obviously the streetcar is with the FIFA World Cup 2026. This is pretty much on hold for another year in terms of a major decision.

And then I wanted to move to number three because this came up in the Puget Sound Regional Council's Transportation Policy Board and they're looking at different pieces because they're under different pressures too and they said it, it was kind of said matter-factly, oh yeah, we'll just increase the sales tax and I made the point that we just passed the 0.1 public safety sales tax and this idea that we're gonna continue just to add to the sales tax is not really viable.

It definitely shouldn't be said in a very matter-of-fact way.

And I think this is something that we have to look at because with all the, as Council Member Rivera's talked in the past, all these different pieces coming up, whether it's Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle City Light, we have consent decrees with SPU, we have all these different pressures coming up and at some point we cannot keep adding to this.

This kind of goes back to my point this morning.

We're always looking for new revenue but there was no spending working group to look at that piece.

And I think we're gonna run up against the ceiling.

So when I see this slide, this policy consideration, I'm like, yeah, it's there but I don't think we can be and so forth.

These pieces, are gonna be driving us, and I see this to be problematic.

Appreciate the update, and I did get an update.

I think we all got it from Director Emery.

I appreciate the update on the automated camera enforcement, and I echo Council Member Saka's points here.

I do like to go to number five, the transit ambassadors and transit security.

Your bullet there, 2026 proposed budget does not include dedicated funding for these purposes.

Can you speak to that?

Yes, so specifically that it's about the same proviso for transit ambassadors in the King County Behavioral Health Team.

While there may be funding that could be directed to that purpose, there is no specific funding set aside in the proposed budget that I'm aware of.

So if we were to do this, then we have to go find the dollars?

Or one could do the same, a similar thing of proviso money that's there.

It would have the effect of potentially reducing the amount of transit service that we're purchasing for the year to be able to provide a better, more enhanced transit experience.

So it would still go to a transit purchase, it would go to a different, to support a different service that's related to transit.

I stop on this one because I have regular meetings with my King County Council counterpart on public safety, King County Council Member Jorge Barón, and we were talking about transit security, King County Metro security, and they have their challenges fiscal too, and this is something where we should be working in partnership, and we do have this as it was placed into the levy, and so we have opportunity to further our safety in our city as it relates to public transit.

and as council member Saka noted with the tragic death of Mr. Yim, this is something that it seems kind of casual to know, again, going back to using that term, no dedicated funding for these purposes when that's such an important public safety feature that we have right now, a concern that we have right now in our city.

Just to emphasize again what Cal was describing, and he knows more than I do on this topic, but through the voter-approved transit measure, the city has a pot of money, if you will, that we can use to buy transit services, and Metro in particular is selling those services.

And in fact, there's a sole provider, and by restriction they're the only ones we can buy it from.

But we can control in some degree through negotiation, because they have their own system to serve, but we can control the mix of services we get there, and it can be more buses, or it can be just, again, on some margin, more ambassadors on fewer buses, inherently, right?

So there is inherently that partnership, and making the determinations about the appropriate levels and types of service, if you will, is part of this.

And again, as Cal described, there is dedicated funding for transit.

What there is not is an earmark specifically around security.

There was last year that could be going forward.

And with or without it, the executive may well be investing in transit security through its negotiations with Metro.

So it's not saying that it won't happen, but you could emphasize and make that a top priority, if you will.

and also I do think it gets back to your earlier point about the Seattle Transit measure coming up for renewal because it is that money.

So we have the Seattle Transit measure because the city wants more transit than what King County has been historically been able to provide.

And we have purchased additional transit service hours that help support our growth and help support our economic engine and all those things.

but we're buying those services from King County and I guess it's that flip side of if we want that we have to decide what resources we're going to use and currently that is the sales tax.

It's interesting.

You know, bottom line is we need a safer system.

The safer the system, the more use it gets, the more fares that are paid.

You know, I know there's proposals about doing away with fares, which I find interesting given the fiscal strates that the city, county, and the state are all in.

But, you know, here we are.

At the end of the day, we need, for all the other reasons, environmental, we need to increase the public transit ridership.

And a safer experience is a major factor of whether that does increase the way it needs to.

Councilmember Saka mentioned this, but I know the regional transit boards are taking this very seriously.

I understand, though I have not looked at it in great detail myself, that King County Metro's proposed to your budget does include additional funding for transit security safety proposals.

I know that Sound Transit is taking this very seriously and there's sort of ongoing work amongst all the jurisdictions to make progress.

But, you know, that is, they are the ones who are delivering the service.

They are the ones that have the contracts with the security officers who are providing that service.

We are the ones who want the service.

So we need to demand better, more of the county.

So I'll talk to my counterpart.

I'll make that point to him.

And I think we all should.

but I'll do that.

I appreciate policy consideration number six.

As stated, I'm going to be working through all the, you know, it's bubbled up in terms of creating safer streets in District 7 for this, and we'll look forward to working with SDOT on this to make it smoothest and most productive and most efficient for that.

And related to number seven in Sound Transit 3, I'll just reiterate if on one hand through the comprehensive plan, if we're putting a regional center into Ballard on the land use side, on the transportation side, we have to ensure that ST3 makes it to that regional center.

And then lastly, I just want to thank Mr. Councilmember Saka for bringing up the e-mobility piece.

I think that we need to do better.

It's been increased which is great.

But there's also been an increased number of emails, calls, talks in terms of the safety piece of that.

And we just need to ensure that that's done to the best of our ability.

So thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Anything else from the table at this time?

Seeing none, Council Member Solomon followed by Rivera.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My questions relate to the streetcar.

I'm looking at the ridership numbers that you have there.

I'm looking at the expenditures, and bottom line, do we even need the Southlake Union streetcar?

And what services are the streetcars providing that mental transit currently isn't providing?

I've always wondered, why do we build this thing at grade, interfering with regular and metro transit traffic as well as vehicular traffic.

Thank you for the question.

This actually permits a lot for us to continue to do the streetcar.

Yes, I should just go back in history a little bit and bring us to why the South Lake Union Streetcar was first proposed.

It was not proposed as a transportation project.

It was proposed as an economic development project.

It was proposed to demonstrate that the city was serious about putting investment in South Lake Union to make sure there was some support for economic development in that area.

And in that sense, I think it has been wildly successful.

Over the years, it has suffered from not having signal priority, not having some of the transit benefits, so it's had to have upgrades to try to provide that more.

and at that same time we have done things like extend the rapid ride from West Seattle into South Lake Union because that's where people want to go but that also is starting to duplicate some of the service and so you will see that the ridership for South Lake Union has not really, it still hasn't recovered to the pre-pandemic levels for instance.

I think it is an open question about how it serves.

I think that was largely driving the previous proposal for the Center City Connector to combine the First Hill and South Lagoon street cars into one system that maybe had more overlapping service, could provide more connections.

I do think that the next major decision point with South Lagoon really comes with the if the Ballard light rail extension comes forth, there is a station in the Westlake area near sort of the Whole Foods.

It has potential impacts for taking the South Lake Union streetcar offline for some period of time.

And it also frankly connects South Lake Union to downtown and other connections that maybe some of that service was supporting.

I will say that decommissioning a streetcar is not without its own costs.

There's certainly assets there.

but it requires some deliberate consideration and a plan for how you would even approach that.

Okay, thank you for that.

I appreciate it.

Nothing further from me.

Thank you, Council Member Solomon.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for being here, Kel.

Thank you for your answer on that because I mean, I was here 20 years ago when South Lake Union, that streetcar was first proposed and I think you're right.

I mean, I think the intent was also to build a connector that never happened.

So anyway, gets us to today.

Thank you for laying out the options.

I really want to go back to the transit ambassadors and transit security, because this is really huge, and I'm going to lend a plus one to my colleagues here.

It is something that I'm constantly talking to constituents about in terms of safety, whether or not they ride.

light rail or Metro buses for that matter, a lot has to do with safety.

So I really want to thank my colleague, Councilmember Saka for sponsoring that island to co-sponsorship to that report and thank you and Sound Transit for following up with our partners at Metro and at Sound Transit for collecting the data on incidents on both metro and light rail.

And what I'm looking at from 2023 to the beginning part of this year is on the metro side, doesn't look like a lot has changed in terms of numbers of incidents, particularly as it regards transit worker assault.

But just across the board, the differences are negligible.

On the sound transit side, we seem to be doing a bit better, maybe.

we'll see at the end of the year but really it seems negligible and that is of concern because we've put investments toward this and we're hoping for a big difference and it's still an issue for us and then of course now we don't have anything in the 26 budget that has been proposed for transit security, both on Metro and light rail.

And we need to work with our, thank you council member Kettle for yes, we need to work with our counterparts at the county and also sound transit because we're trying to build a robust transit system in the city, which we desperately need.

We all support.

I, for one, as someone who I, and I've said this only about 200 times at this point, didn't have a driver's license till I was 30. I fully support.

And if it's not safe, people are not going to ride it.

And that is a big problem for the city.

So definitely want to figure out ways that we can work with our partners, because I hear you Cal, we don't oversee these systems, but we do pay into the system and we do need to get our return on investment on that.

And then also quite frankly, we're just partners with the county and sound transit, we're all partners together, we're all serving the same populations and I want us to all work together and figure this out.

This isn't about placing blame, I'm not interested in that.

we have friends at the county and we have friends at Sound Transit and let's work together to figure this out because I believe we can do it if we want to and I think the funding piece you know I think there's there's other things at play here as well if we're putting funding and not making the huge difference we want to be making there's some other things perhaps at play so let's figure that out anyway

A couple observations.

I do think the regional transit group, the group that Councilmember Sacco was mentioning that came up with the report, the task force, the region is definitely taking this seriously.

I think that is clear.

I think it's That's a very recent report.

I think that only came out about maybe two weeks ago.

So I haven't even digested it myself.

But in terms of attention and sort of the intent to kind of move forward, I think that is clearly there.

I did wanna highlight just the scale of what we're talking about with King County Metro is a very large system.

So our investments are, targeted and meant to help support where we see priorities, it's a drop in the bucket for King County or even for Sound Transit and their geographic scale.

Given our challenges, we are not going to be in a position to be able to fix those problems.

But the idea of being able to identify where we can bring some resources that affect where we see particular needs, I think that is what we've been done today.

So just those two things I wanted to put in context.

I appreciate that Cal and maybe you have a more recent report, but I'm looking at the slide that we did where we got the response in June.

So, um, uh, anyway, I'm referring to a regional task force that had a number of recommendations about how they might move forward.

Um, you know, there's things that are, I know this anecdotally that, uh, for instance, uh, uh, sound transit has piloted a program where if someone sees an issue, they can, instead of having to tell anybody, they can text a message of here's what's happening and a response can be sent to help address the situation.

It's a lot easier for sound transit where you have a fixed rail system, you know what train that's on, a lot harder for a distributed system like King County where you're across the whole county, but King County is looking at that as well and trying to figure out what What are the parallels?

What can we do better?

So I think it's still a lot of trial and error and certainly a lot of people working on it.

I guess the other piece I'd put too is we rely on SDOT to manage our service contract buy, but that is very much about the buying of service.

We're stepping into security, we're stepping into public safety, we're stepping into Seattle Public and how they coordinate with the Sheriff's Department and other pieces.

So I just wanted to make sure that that's reflected in this conversation as well, that if we're getting into the public safety side of it, that's going to affect our public safety departments as well.

Thank you, Cal.

I will say, though, that some of this isn't necessarily things that if it's a behavioral health issue, obviously it's more of this what council member Saka was talking about.

That was why we put the behavioral health team in there because we wanna make sure that we're sending folks in that can help people for everybody involved.

So I wanna say that, but I appreciate what you're saying.

I look forward to reading the recommendations from the task force and just continuing to work on this together and identifying areas where the city can be supportive to our constituents and partner with the agencies that oversee these systems.

Because again, I'm not trying to place blame Cal.

I just wanna make sure that we're able to come up with some solutions that are really gonna make an impact so people can ride these systems that we are putting so much heart and effort and investments into.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Anything that you'd like to conclude with?

Council Member Rank.

Thank you chair.

I wanna focus first on the Seattle transit measure if we could, understanding that it's set to expire end of 2027, set to expire and we have until August 2026 to authorize legislation to put this before voters.

I understand some of the historic, like the history behind this, it also has to do with dynamics with the county.

Could you kind of outline for us opportunities to partner with the county and what working together with the county and doing a measure together might look like?

At risk of getting a little esoteric in terms of the authority, this all comes from the authority under a transit benefit district.

And we have overlapping authority with the county as it relates to vehicle license fees, but we have separate authority when it comes to sales tax.

There may be benefit in going together with the county in terms of clarity to the voters and making a more comprehensive package, but it depends a little bit, I think, on the specific tool that if we decide to move forward with something.

If we move forward with vehicle license fee, that has an impact on how much vehicle license fee the county can collect.

and so there is a coordination there that is almost required.

Sales tax, they are independent but obviously the same person pays both so that is something to consider as well.

I'm happy to follow up with you afterwards or separately if you want to dig in more.

Certainly, thank you for that.

And just to be clear, we can, for the Seattle Transit Measure, our transportation benefit district, it can only be funded through sales tax or the vehicle license fee.

There's no other funding avenue.

There are other funding sources there, but, you know, they largely include things like going to tolling.

Understood.

Colleagues, I elevate that because I think you all know how I feel about sales taxes in particular, so I want to understand all of our options on the table, of course, and understanding some of the history, too.

Of course, historically, Seattle has wanted a higher level of transit service as a I'm a bus commuter every day myself.

I know I certainly appreciate that, but I know I hear from our transportation advocates a desire to see if there's opportunities to work better with the county and also understanding that we've created a two-tier system where now when working folks, many of our workers are now needing to commute into the city of Seattle, but are living outside of the city of Seattle, their days here, there's a different level of service.

And so I think work alongside the county to try and remedy that is something I'm certainly hearing about.

But I want to also pivot to do a quick clarification.

Going to the cameras, in here we have 1.4 million and we have one FTE position that would be funded for camera infraction revenue.

How much funding are camera infractions expected to bring in?

For 2026, 17 million.

Thank you for that clarification.

All right, thank you.

Colleagues, that's actually all my questions for today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

Colleagues, any other questions?

If not, I can jump into mine.

Seeing none at the moment, I'll stick on transit ambassadors.

Just understanding, do we know if this program was ever implemented?

the transit ambassador program.

I understand that they were deployed in the University District and in the Southeast on Rainier Avenue.

Okay, for two static locations never riding on the bus, is that correct?

I'm sorry, could you repeat that?

Two static locations where the ambassadors were not moving along with transit, so they were at the- Through the entire corridor, so the transit corridor of the University District and then the transit corridor of Rainier's were the emphasis areas.

I would have to follow up to know a bit more about exactly what that deployment looked like, but my understanding it was corridor wide.

Thank you, and those transit ambassadors are paid for by our transit measure and implemented by Metro, is that correct?

I believe they were, yes, it's provided to Metro service and we help support that cost, yeah.

I will say the same thing that I said on the record last budget, which is SDOT has still not yet briefed me on this request that I made.

And I put this in as a proviso before any of the council members on the dais, council member Juarez is remote right now, any of the council members that are currently on the dais were council members.

And so I think what you're catching from me is a bit of frustration.

Next question along the same line is within the Seattle Transportation Benefit District and the measure, have we ever used the full funding that we've received to fund buses and increased bus frequency or bus routes?

When the transit measure was first proposed, we also set aside some money to make capital improvements to help support transit.

So things like, you know, getting signal priority through a particular difficult intersection, there was a capital component.

We also had a significant component for access to transit to help support low income.

We provided passes for students for a period of time until the state relieved of that responsibility.

So we've never fully 100% purchased transit, but the money has been used to support transit in its entirety.

In the last several years, this has been a resource that the executive has used to help support the operations of the streetcar because it is allowable under what we've asked the voters to spend it on.

So that is partially how we have dealt with the ongoing subsidy for the streetcar in the last two or three years.

I may have this part wrong, but during COVID and immediately post COVID, the scale of Metro's operations were reduced sufficiently that there was, had freed up some of the money for the kinds of purposes that you were just describing.

Yes, so COVID definitely had a big impact on all transit service and for reasons about what it took for the county to sort of get back up and operating.

There was capacity constraints about how much transit they could put back on the streets.

So there were some balances that were balances of our resources where we could not find the transit service to buy for Metro, that did lead to some of those overages.

Said another way, Metro is restrictive in what we can purchase from them.

Is that a fair and accurate understanding?

Metro has capacity constraints about how much service that they can sell us.

Yes.

I think again, the frustration that you're finding from me here today is that in 2019, there was better bus service in Ballard than there is today, despite an increased density and population.

I say that because there is no direct bus service from Ballard to either downtown or light rail.

And as council member Kettle and Solomon were discussing about Ballard being already having the zoning for a regional center and being designated as such.

I have seen bus reductions on routes that are said to be supported by the Seattle Transit measure.

I've seen reductions in number of trips.

I've seen reductions of routes.

I'm hearing, setting aside the capital cost and the free passes for youth, which are both great ideas, we've never been able to use the full funding of this Yale Transit measure.

And the last frustration I'll let on the table and then we'll continue moving on is that when asking questions about the use and implementation of these funds, I get finger pointing back and forth as to it's their job, it's their job, it's their job.

If we're collecting tax money, the Seattleites need to be feeling the benefits.

I'll have more questions about this later.

Looking at the presentation that you've just provided, you flagged that there's a $49 million rolling deficit.

Can you explain a little bit more?

This is just year over year, much like the structural budget deficit that we have with the general fund, is that correct?

It is similar in that we have a balanced 26 proposal for the transportation fund, but given the projected costs going forward, right now the transportation fund does show $49 million deficit in 2027. There are some changes in expectations on revenue that I'm not still fully comfortable with.

So I have asked some questions about what's driving some of the changes on the revenue side, but I don't have enough information to fully understand what's going on there.

So that may make a difference in what that looks like in the future, but the trend is definitely...

It's not lost on me that we are showing deficits in out years and that hasn't always been historically true.

Understanding that since the pandemic, a lot of these finances have looked a lot shaky in recent years, but historically that hasn't been true.

Thank you.

And is that 49 million stemming from the levy or from our general fund?

It is completely separate from the levy and separate from the general fund.

It is the transportation fund itself.

The transportation fund is the main operating fund of SDOT It has a lot of different revenue sources.

That's partially what makes it so difficult to kind of unwind this.

Some of the things that go in there are things like the commercial parking tax, which is what parking operators pay.

Some of the things are the street use cost center, which pays for permits and other things that are going on.

So it's a real mix of revenues and resources in there.

And that's part of why I don't have a fully great understanding of where everything is. but what I can point to is the financial plan that shows the deficit.

Thank you.

And in 2019 SDOT had $43.2 million of general fund.

Today they are operating a $56.2 million of general fund.

It is my understanding that through the levy there's a minimum required amount of general fund in the department.

Can you remind me how much that is?

I don't have that at my fingertips.

It's roughly that amount.

And that was a requirement on the levy.

In order to be able to collect the property tax for transportation, we have to have that minimum general fund appropriation.

Thank you.

You can sense some of my frustration.

I'll come back and meet with you directly about ongoing challenges that I'm having with the department, noting that even as recently as yesterday, I had made a request of the department two months plus ago, had not received feedback or communication regarding a project I thought we were partnering on to find paint on the ground.

which I appreciate, but what you're hearing from me is a repeated theme stemming multiple years about communication and if I'm trying to partner with the department and they're putting paint on the ground without having a conversation with me, it leaves something to be desired.

Colleagues, any other questions for this department?

I'm seeing none.

So with that, we're going to move right on to our next item.

So if the clerk can read the short title.

Actually, before we move on, Director Noble, Calvin, anything to wrap up on?

Not for my...

No, it was actually a very healthy discussion.

Glad we had it.

Fair enough.

Thank you very much.

With that, will the clerk please read the final item into the record?

I don't know.

There you go.

Agenda item 5, Seattle Parks and Recreation.

Fantastic.

Thank you, Clerk Schwinn.

With that, we have the one, the only, Tracy Ratzliff.

Thank you, Tracy, for sticking with us for another budget session.

We are lucky to have you.

Karina, we are very excited to have you on the table as well.

And welcome.

Once you give your introduction, Council Member Hollingsworth, you can say something if you'd like, or we can hold it until after the presentation, your desire.

Over to you, Tracy and Karina.

Thank you.

Hi, Karina Bull with the Council of Central Staff.

And Tracy Ratzler for the Council of Central Staff.

Fantastic.

All right.

Well, I will launch in.

This presentation regarding Seattle Parks and Recreation is going to look and sound different than what Cal just presented to you for the Seattle Department of Transportation.

This presentation has not identified policy considerations.

However, there are many changes in SPR's budget, and we on central staff have received many questions from council offices.

We're seeking to ensure that council members have a solid understanding of what the 2026 proposal is.

And so we're here to present an overview of that.

And please do keep in mind that there will be a Seattle Park District Board meeting next week on Tuesday, October 21st at two.

So Seattle Parks will be back here at the table to provide a deep dive presentation on the financial plan for the Seattle Park District part of SPR's budget.

So that'll be an additional opportunity to ask the kind of very detailed questions that they'll be able to answer on the fly.

So to begin, For these first slides that have a lot of the numbers, I'm going to be going over these very quickly because there are slides later on that describe the notable operating and capital budget changes.

Writ large, Seattle Park's budget is experiencing a 29.2 decrease in the 2026 proposed budget.

On the operating side, that is actually a 2.3 million increase.

And on the capital side, that is a $151 million decrease.

The vast majority of the funds that are decreasing on the capital side are due to shifting the issuance of bonds for capital projects related to five community centers and money that had been allocated for unreinforced masonry rehabilitation efforts.

And those are being moved to 2027 to reflect updated project schedules.

We've been informed by parks that those projects simply are not ready for construction and not ready for bond issuance, and the URM, which is the easy way of saying the unreinforced masonry bonds, aren't ready to be issued right now also.

Moving on to the next slide, an overview of the parks budget.

You'll see that for the general fund contribution, it is significant.

It's a little over a third of the budget at 128.3 million.

However, going on to the next slide, you'll see that the bulk of SPR's budget is actually funded by different fund sources.

And there's a detailed breakdown of that.

There it is.

You'll see that the largest contributor is the Seattle Park District Fund.

It's almost equally matched to the General Fund, just a wee bit higher this year.

Then comes the General Fund, the Park Fund, which is the repository for the fees and charges that Parks collects.

And I believe that's also, or less is the General Fund, the federal, the grants, state and local grants.

Yeah, Parks and Rec Fund has the grants as well.

There's also REIT 1 and 2 and then a balance of $7 million for the other funds as well.

For the operating budget, again, this is a $2.3 million increase.

A lot of these changes are achieved through use of fund balances and shifting funds within the department's budget and department transfers.

And going over each one of them, the first one is a one-time adjustment of part district funding to adjust the general fund deficit.

This is basically a fund swap.

where park district funds are being used to replace general fund in the line of business related or for ground maintenance.

This is achieved two ways.

3.5 million is from a fund balance.

It's underspend related to savings from the hiring freeze and money that wasn't needed for the annual wage adjustment or increase due to higher forecasted inflation than was actually realized.

So that's 3.5 million.

The next is money that is saved from issuing these bonds in 2027 rather than in 2026. When these bonds are issued in 2027, it means that the parks will not be responsible for paying any of the debt payment obligations for those bonds in 2026. So the money that was set aside, $6.7 million to pay the debt payment obligations, now is being repurposed in two different ways in the proposal.

And one of those ways is to put $4 million towards this replacement of the general fund and acknowledgement of the deficit.

The next change is in regards to graffiti abatement.

It's $1.2 million general fund and 2.0 FTE for that.

You received an overview of the One Seattle Graffiti Plan from EDIN this morning.

The way it's landing in SPR is that there is a transfer of funding from SPU, about $700,000.

That transfer is for one position and the funding for another position to administer the graffiti enforcement, which will now move from SPU to SPR.

There's separate budget legislation that's going to give SPR the authority to administer the graffiti code enforcement.

And in addition to the funding, for those positions is another $175,000 that's going to give SPR the funding it needs to address graffiti on SDOT parking pay stations.

And then last, there is, this is the increase part of it, $500,000 that is designated for enhanced graffiti prevention and abatement efforts.

that's got a wide range of purposes.

It's for cross-agency partnerships.

It's for youth education and for vendors that would relate to that kind of programming.

Not included in this 1.28 because it's separate is the $700,000 that was already in the endorsed budget for a contract with an organization.

Right now it's Uplift Northwest for abatement on private property.

The next notable item in the operating budget relates to youth programming and the department's use of $2.4 million from the FEP levy.

Counsel, you approved a $2.4 million of the FEP levy for parks operations.

You added money specifically.

to restore the funding for the Environmental Education Program.

So that's what you receive reflected here.

The way that Parks is using it is 2.4 million is for Red Barn Ranch, out of school programs, the Environmental Learning Center programs, and then a certain portion of money for Red Barn Ranch and the out of schools, those funding sources are now going away.

So the payroll expense tax or the jumpstart tax used for Red Barn Ranch is now no longer supporting that.

It's being paid for by FEP levies, same thing with the general fund.

let's see, public restroom maintenance.

In response to the city auditor's review of bathrooms at City of Seattle Parks, the SPR is proposing what they're calling the restoration of parks maintenance positions that were removed in the 2025 budget.

acknowledging the priority focus on bathrooms.

They're adding them back, they're adding funds back for them and that will be several positions to perform the maintenance and then also a coordinating position to implement the auditor's recommendations for improvements in the administration of how the bathrooms are cleaned and how to prioritize that.

Next is the park rangers expansion, which is adding general fund for three FTE to support the park rangers, increasing the actual rangers from 28 to 31, and then also adding a supervisor position.

This work is going to be focused on the downtown activation team for downtown parks, but it will additionally add capacity citywide.

There also is in that funding some additional funding for overtime to enhance parks maintenance as well.

For organizational capacity, parks recognized the need to add a few more back of house staff for human resources and accounting.

This is to help the department meet their cycle two commitments, and they were finding that they needed more internal staff to meet those efforts.

And then last are pay compression corrections.

When the coalition of city unions' pay adjustments were enacted, it resulted in pay compression situation for three job classifications that were non-represented.

So this'll bring them up to a pay level that is commensurate with their work in relation to the other positions that got a pay bump.

That impacts 11 positions.

Next, for the capital budget, again, $151 million decrease.

This is largely related to the shifting of the bonds.

There are, however, some, there's an infusion of funds for new projects.

On a one-time basis, there is $2 million of REIT money for public restrooms.

This is for the cost of weatherization of nine sites.

These are already included in the department's goals, and the costs have risen over the years, and there's also additional money for some insurance deductibles as well.

Next is 1.8 million of Park and Recreation Fund for Gasworks Park Safety Project.

This project would pay for the installation of security lighting and also removal of what's called appurtenances, which are permanent fixtures that could be, this is my word, an attractive nuisance or dangerous.

catwalks, ladders, etc.

So the money will pay for the removal of those to enhance the safety of the parks.

And then last is one-time investment for Leschi Moorage.

This is funded by $1 million from the King County Levee Fund.

These are contractually required improvements.

Costs have increased over time due to environmental requirements, increasing the scope.

The next round of the capital budget proposal relates to the big community center projects.

And one of them, Chair Strauss, you mentioned earlier, Green Lake.

Green Lake would receive a $2.7 million for further planning and design for this project to take place in one phase rather than two.

And then because a one phase scope would cost more money.

It would also increase the bond issuance by 17 million dollars from 56 million to 73 million in order to pay for the debt service payment obligations for that increase in the bond.

That money would come by removing the funds that had been set aside for the URN, Unreinforced Masonry Rehabilitation Efforts.

As I mentioned earlier, the bonds for five community centers that are not ready for construction next year, that is being moved to 2027. Those community centers are Green Lake, Lake City, 8th and Mercer, Loyal Heights and Queen Anne.

Just to note that the funds that are being shifted for those debt service payment obligations are $6.7 million.

That's what was in the financial plan for 2026. They will be much higher in 2027. Parks has adjusted the amount that is estimated to be owed to reflect inflation, and so the amount owed in 2027 for those projects is increased to $11 million in the financial plan.

Next, labor increases Oh, this is the old one, okay, I'm sorry.

There is a revised PowerPoint presentation that was sent to you by email, so I hope that this won't cause too much confusion, but this PowerPoint, this slide, what it's saying is, well, let me tell you what's correct, and then I'll tell you why this slide says what it says.

The 2026 proposed budget includes 23 more FTEs than the 2026 endorsed budget.

The reason why this slide says 15.7 FTE is that my error, and thanks to Councilmember Rivera's office and Nick Duda for pointing this out, is that the 15.7 FTE increase is in relation to the 2025 adopted budget.

but what you see here is that these positions, the ones that aren't included on this slide relate to the environmental learning program.

They're being restored at 7.35 FTEs.

They are still in the budget.

in 2025. They just were proposed for removal in 2026. Now with the FEP levy funds, they can stay.

So it's different than the 2026 endorsed budget.

So in addition to those 7.35 FTE for environmental learning, There are five FTE for supportive capital delivery projects.

The funding for those positions is all included in the CIP for those capital projects.

XPR recognized the need to have more administration to keep those projects going and to keep them on the timeline.

There is also staff added for public restroom cleaning.

We went through these in the operating section, staff for park rangers, code enforcement, the internal HR and accounting functions.

There are a couple of technical items.

Adding one FTE when parks looked over the number of reclassifications and changes over 35 positions in the department, there ended up being one additional FTE for those who had for the number of positions that had increased to full-time.

There is another position that was added by legislation regarding sound transit that's being funded by the Transportation Fund.

And then last, two positions are being abrogated for park safety.

They're no longer needed due to the park rangers expansion.

So that is the deep dive overview of SPR's budget.

Thank you.

Director Noble or Tracy, anything else to add at this time?

As you can see, we didn't identify specific issues but thought the department is large enough and important enough to you and you may have some issues of your own that we wanted to make sure you had the background.

Fantastic, and I'll turn it over to Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth as chair of the committee overseeing this department and then to Councilmember Juarez, the most recent or maybe past chair of the committee overseeing this department.

Over to you, Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'll be super quick.

And thank you, central staff, for your memo and your overview of that.

I don't have any questions right now.

I've been gathering them all, but none that I want to say for the record.

But one of the things I do want to make sure that I point out, and obviously parks are some of the most important green spaces and spaces for people, and looking to improve on that.

The one thing I'm going to be looking real close at is the labor piece.

I know oftentimes we have people reach out and one of the one of the areas of concern is boots on the ground and having enough maintenance workers and just people that are on the ground and that are, you know, where people come into contact a lot with.

And so I'll be looking at all that.

I really appreciate it.

I don't have any questions now.

I might at the end, but Mr. Chair, I really appreciate your leadership.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Council Member Juarez.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you Karina Tracy you kind of blew by page six a little bit too fast for me to grab my notes can we go back to page six real quick.

On the long term general obligation bonds, I know that you rattled off five Community centers of course I heard Lake City, but I heard the other ones as well.

So just because and I would actually appreciate a list, maybe you can get it to me offline what you shared about.

the five community centers and shifting the bond date on the issuance of those bonds.

Does that in fact change the construction date?

Does it delay instruction and repair on these capital structures?

Yes, it will change the construction date and those five community centers are listed on page five and I'm happy to send you a list of them offline.

I think you just went too fast for me.

Very fast and it would have been helpful to have them on the same slide as the one about the adjustments.

Where are they?

Right there.

Do you think offline and maybe with my colleagues as well, and certainly the chair, You can break down, because we know we have, all of these are in different stages in issuing the bonds, whether it's a new community center, repair, whatever, for the capital projects that comes out of the capital side of the budget.

Can you give me a timeline on those?

I don't know where they are in the area of construction or issuing the bonds and when the construction date is and when that would shift.

That's my concern.

And these are all spread across the city, so it isn't just D5.

Okay, well I'm gonna, I'm looking to Tracy to correct me if I'm missing anything here, but my understanding is that no bonds have been issued for these particular projects.

They are in varying stages of planning and design, but Parks intends for them to be construction ready in 2027. the hope was that they would be ready for construction next year.

That has turned out not to be the case.

And so moving these bonds, the bond issuance to 2027 aligns the issuance of the bond with the construction schedule.

So now it is intended that bonds will be issued in 2027, construction will start in 2027, and that's when the debt service payments will begin as well.

Avoid using all capitals'

So council member, that project specifically, I don't want to say that, it went through another series, as you know, of community engagement.

And when they had that work done, in addition with trying to add in and incorporate into that whole project of the housing element, the timeline has been one in which they weren't expecting that they were gonna be in construction in 2026. The difficulty or the complexity of this project has resulted in that timeline being optimistic to begin with.

And I would just suggest to you that even when we developed the second spending plan for the park district, that we were probably being a little optimistic about when we would actually be ready for these projects to construct but you have to put something in somewhere.

So we did and lo and behold, they weren't ready to be constructed in the timeline that we thought.

So what's reflected here I think is truly the time that is take with each one of these projects, very unique in terms of what they have going on there with the community and the complexity of the project.

What you have now is hopefully now a more truing up of when the bond issuance would actually happen, which would be in 2026 with construction starting in 2027.

Okay, so let me just make a note here.

So Lake City, unlike the other ones, has housing.

Yes.

So we've been doing this for 10 years, and when Office of Housing presented, they had construction either I think quarter three or quarter four of 2026. So I hear what you're saying.

So I guess my concern is because we work so hard to get housing on top of the community center, next to our two pre-K centers for transit-oriented housing and childcare and education.

So I guess that's just a complaint I had that I want to know, and maybe I should go back to housing, and maybe we could talk a little bit more offline, Tracy, because the community in D5 still believes that this was on par for 2026. So this is the first time I'm hearing it's been bumped to 227. And again, because we made housing such a priority for this city and certainly in this neighborhood that I was under the impression that it was gonna happen next year.

So I guess I'm disappointed to hear that.

My understanding was that the bids were going to go out in 2026 and maybe they are by some chance gonna start by the end of 2026. I didn't understand that to be the case, but I could be totally wrong.

And so we'll verify that with you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

That would mean a lot to us and those listening public on the bonds and when we can actually turn dirt, move dirt.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

I can tell you that a day gone by without the Lake City Community Center open is a day too long for me.

Council Member Solomon followed by Council Member Cattle.

Thank you very much, Chair.

My question does relate to capital budgets and primarily thinking about the demo and replacement of the Mount Baker Bath House, as well as improvements to Jose Rizal Park, the removal of the shelter redesign of the comfort station as well as repurposing the parking lot to more play area.

I don't see those listed in the capital budget slides.

I'm wondering, are those in the works?

I mean, what's, and do we have a timeline for when those things are going to be done?

Yeah, for those I'll need to follow up with you.

Not every capital project has its own capital improvement page, and so there is a big fund of major maintenance backlog and asset fund, and there are a number of projects in there.

So we can look in there, but I know that there exists right now an item in the SPR budget tracker in the questions and answers that addresses the Mount Baker.

of rehabilitation, and I just can't remember the answer right now, but I can get back to you on that one.

In addition to Jose Rizal.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Solomon.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Thank you, everyone, for being here.

And just a follow-up on that question, and I'm double-checking with my staff.

I don't have a follow-up, but I had a meeting with Parks, and we went through everything in D7 to include the Queen Anne Community Center, that it was on track.

And now I see this on...

slide five as mentioned earlier about the Queen Anne Community Center.

Can you speak to that?

And I ask partly too because we have the West Queen Anne Playfield, otherwise known as Big How, that shovel in the dirt in 27. And there's also been talk about using the District 7 Fund maybe related to a campus street for First West between Crockett and Howe, which is basically the area between McClure and the Community Center.

with the Queen Anne pool on the other side.

Can you speak to the Queen Anne Community Center piece of this?

I can't speak at length, and so we'll have to follow up with you.

But what I do remember hearing from Parks is that council added money for the Queen Inn Community Center renovation.

And so it was, I think, always a hope and a dream that construction would start in 2026, but that they learned recently that that wasn't going to be a reality.

And so it was moved to 2027.

Hope and Dream is not really a good answer.

I mean, I'll double check, but I was told on these schedules, and there's a whole bunch of other parks in District 7 that we were just running through, because Queen Anne Community Center has been pushed, the West Queen Anne Playfield's even worse.

It's been a quarter century pushed to the right, schedule-wise.

and so shovels need to be going in the dirt for like the West Queen Anne playfield in 27 and then the Queen Anne Community Center needs to be worked at the same time and I'm a little bit concerned because I'm hearing like I have meetings before this whole budget I'm hearing okay things are on track you know Smith Cove there's a whole bunch of different things you know throughout the district and then all of a sudden I'm kind of like Council Member Juarez, I'm looking at the slide, I'm like, okay, what does this mean?

And so I'd like to get some more details on this, please.

Absolutely.

We'll follow up, and I don't mean to be glib in their response, but we will follow up and find out more about that.

Well, that's a challenge because, not for you, but sometimes we hear from departments one thing, you know, and I won't quote the Top Gun movie as I'm tempted to right now about Eagles writing checks, but we can't be told one thing and the next thing you know in part of a budget briefing being told something else.

And there just may be a lack of specificity and understanding when you said on schedule what that meant.

Was it that we're going to be- That's one reason why I'm saying out loud the West Queen Anne play field needs to be shovels in it because I was told about there's a sequencing when this has to start.

So shovels in the dirt in 27 for the play field which is right adjacent to the community center.

Right, right.

And I believe that Karina is correct.

I think they are intending to begin construction on- Intending?

No.

Shovels need to be in the dirt in 2027.

In 2027 on the Queen Anne Community Center.

That was my understanding.

So we will get that verified for you so that everybody understands.

All right.

Thank you.

Yes.

Fantastic.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Colleagues, any other questions at this time?

I already went on my 10 minute speech about Green Lake Community Center earlier today, just noting that this was a project that was supposed to be in the first round of the Metropolitan Parks District funding.

They chose to have small renovations instead so that Rainier Beach Community Center could be built instead.

those renovations have failed we were then given funding during the second round of Metropolitan Parks District funding but not enough to do it all in one phase and so this last chunk of money here enables less construction impact quicker reopening of the community center and this building is nearly a hundred years old and yes I have the photos to prove it With that, colleagues, are there other questions for the Parks Department or about the Parks Department issue ID?

I know you mentioned, Tracy, that we've got a Metropolitan Parks District meeting next Tuesday.

Would you like to share a little brief about that for us so that we have a week's notice?

Well, yeah, so it will be the standard kind of briefing that happens in the early days of budget, and they will present an overview of the Seattle Park District financial plan, the changes that are in it, and a reminder of how the Seattle Park District operates and its function and role in their budget, and then there will be a number of resolutions that they will preview which the park district board will vote on the morning before the final vote on the budget.

And so those resolutions will include adoption of the park district financial plan, adoption of the new tax rate for 2026, which preview is 44 cents per thousand dollars assessed property value, and also the 2026 park district board meeting dates.

Wonderful, and just to remind us, the next meeting of the Metropolitan Parks District will be at the conclusion of our budget process, is that correct?

So the one that's next week will be at 2 p.m.

because there's not a city council meeting.

The one where the vote is taken on these resolutions will be after the select budget committee vote on the budget and before the full city council vote on the budget.

So I believe it's 9.30 in the morning and then full council vote will be later on that day.

Thank you for that helpful clarification.

And as I've been investigating the different funding streams and the different caps that the state puts on us, colleagues, you may or may not know that we have a levy cap.

So no matter, levies are not not completely unabated form of funding.

We can only send so much funding requests to the voters.

Can you remind me the structure of the Metropolitan Parks District and how that is not structured under our levy cap?

Yeah, I'm gonna begin and Tracy's gonna take over because we were just discussing this before this presentation.

The City of Seattle has a cap on the maximum rate for property tax that we can assess, and that maximum rate is made up by the sum of the council-approved property tax levy, the councilmanic portion of the property tax, and then the voter approved levies.

but interestingly, the Metropolitan Parks District is technically not the city of Seattle.

It happens to have exactly the same borders and it happens to have you all serving as its board, but it is technically a separate district, a separate branch of government, if you will, or a separate district.

And it has its own restrictions.

Again, these are restrictions that are imposed by state law.

And we need to get back to you on where those sit relative to current collections and what opportunities there are, My understanding about this turns out to have been wrong, so I wanna make sure we get you the correct information just owning that.

There's been some changes since I last engaged.

But that's what's going on there.

Separate conversation, the city of Seattle's property tax cap is one we're beginning to approach, actually, driven by two factors.

One is increasing size of the levies upon renewal, and the other is the slowing of AV, because the total tax revenue that the city can collect is determined by the maximum rate, which again is set in state law, multiplied by the city's total assessed value.

and for many years, pre-pandemic and even into the pandemic, the city's assessed value was escalating quickly.

We may all remember the days of 10% annual property tax increases.

They were seen in your appraised values and the like.

That has calmed considerably.

So our assessed value has flattened.

We have been increasing the levies and we're getting closer to that cap.

As the conversation starts next year about renewing the library levy, that constraint will become candidly, painfully obvious.

Thank you.

My line of questions is not to suggest that we raise the Metropolitan Parks District funding levels, because I believe it's my understanding that voters approved a ceiling in which the City Council or the Metropolitan Parks District could raise two, and I believe that we are actually near the cap of that voter approved allowance as well.

We don't think we are, but we actually established that six year spending plan to make sure that we didn't go to exceed what that maximum was.

So we're getting updated information to see where we are because in fact it is in part based on the AV We think we did a conservative estimate with our six-year spending plan, but you are absolutely right.

We did that with the idea.

We have a maximum that we can't not go above and we don't want to come anywhere near.

And so we're getting an update from the budget office on where we are in terms of that maximum amount.

Thank you.

We have never altered the six-year funding plans midstream.

So this is also not a call to alter that.

But can you remind us where we are in that six-year cycle?

Are we on year two or three?

Well, we're on cycle two and cycle two runs from 2023 through 2028. So we're nearing the midpoint.

And so there are three more years left, 26, 27 and 28. Planning will begin next year for cycle three.

In earnest, it happens in 2027, but the public engagement, that's identifying what is needed, opportunities, all that is beginning next year.

So said another way, if we are interested in having a project in round three of the Metropolitan Park District, that planning is beginning next year, so we should probably get to work now.

Yes, correct.

Fantastic.

And it is quite a robust process.

That's why there has not been changes to the spending plan.

There's quite a robust community engagement process that both the executive goes into that we also embark on when we get a spending plan.

So that's why we have not gone through a process of changing that spending plan.

fundamentally for what is approved because it is quite a process everybody has gone through to get community input on that.

There was also an element of accountability in that, so I could do this history, Tracy was also around to this, but when the city had done a series of parks levy and shifted to the Metropolitan Park District approach, whatever that was, 10 years ago, whatever, and it is the nature of the Metropolitan Park District, it was a one-time vote to create the authority and to create the taxing authority, and that's different than a levy that requires renewal, and the notion what with the need for renewal is itself a form of accountability.

If the City and the Parks Department hasn't delivered to the voter's satisfaction on a levy, then voters could choose not to renew.

When we shifted to the MPD, that blunt instrument of accountability would no longer and is no longer available.

And the sense was that a way to address that was to do a six-year plan and commit to it.

and then towards the end of that plan to evaluate and to talk to the voters and to talk to you about like, okay, did we do what we said we would do so that there could be still some sense of we're making plans and we're committed to them and we will be held accountable to how we deliver it and to how they changed, because to be clear, they have changed.

Needless to say through the pandemic and other, well, as you're hearing today about just dynamics around timing, and some things do change.

But that's another reason why we haven't rushed to the idea of changing the spending authority over that six years, because it was really seen as a way to implement accountability even though the taxing authority is not subject to renewal.

No revenue utopia in the city of Seattle.

That's right, that's right.

Colleagues, any other questions?

Old hand.

Councilmember Hollingsworth, last word for you.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Last word.

Thank you.

There we are.

Tracy, Karina, anything else from you today?

Fantastic.

Well, that does conclude the fifth item on the agenda today.

and we are concluding the Wednesday, October 15th, 2025 Select Budget Committee.

Our next meeting is tomorrow, October 16th at 9.30 a.m.

We will hear from central staff analysts on the Office of Housing, Department of Education and Early Learning, Office of Planning and Community Development, Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

And while we had verbal public comment today, we will only be accepting written public comment through the remainder of this section of the budget.

As a reminder, we discussed initial council member proposals are due to central staff by next Tuesday, October 21st.

And in tomorrow's committee meeting at 10, 16 a.m., we will have the great national shakeout, our annual earthquake preparedness drill.

So be prepared.

We will be on the dais like we were last year for the drill.

So be prepared.

With that, any further business?

Council Member Saka?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just a point of personal privilege to say, go Mariners!

Let's go.

LFG Mariners!

Seize the moment.

I will report we did run into some Blue Jays fans outside of City Hall.

They asked for directions.

We gave them.

We were very polite and said, let's go Mariners.

Let's go Mariners.

Thank you for attending.

We are adjourned.

Thank you.

All right.