Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights & Culture Committee 9/23/22

you

Okay, thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

The September 23rd, 2022 regularly scheduled meeting of the Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights and Culture Committee will come to order.

It is 9.32 and I'm Tammy Morales, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Council Member Lewis?

Council Member Nelson?

Present.

Vice Chair Sawant?

present.

Chair Morales.

Here.

Or present.

Thank you very much.

If there's no objection, today's agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

Today we have 11 appointments to different commissions.

We also have four presentations.

So we will be hearing from the Department of Neighborhoods on the generational wealth building work that they've been doing.

We'll have two presentations on participatory budgeting, one update from our Office of Civil Rights, and I'm thinking of it as a case study from King County on their recently completed participatory budgeting program.

And we will also have a race and social justice initiative update from our office of arts and culture.

We do have a full schedule today, colleagues.

I know normally my committees are fairly brief committee meetings.

I expect it's possible we will go long today.

So please, I think there are some important updates that we are having today, particularly as we lead into the budget cycle.

So I will ask your indulgence before we begin.

Okay.

At this time, we will open the remote general public comment period.

I don't see anyone online.

Is that correct?

Okay.

I think we only have one person in person, so let me go ahead and run through the chat.

I'll ask that everyone be patient as we operate this system.

It does remain the strong intent of the council to have public comment regularly included in our agendas, but we do reserve the right to modify public comment periods at any point if we deem the system as being abused.

Each speaker will have two minutes to speak, and once I call your name, please step up to the mic.

You will hear a chime when there are 10 seconds left, and once you hear the chime, we ask that you please wrap up your comments.

Okay, so we will go ahead and open the public comment period.

I have two speakers.

The first is Carolyn Malone, and the second is Marguerite Richard.

Ms. Malone, you can go first, please.

I got to turn on your microphone.

Hold on one second.

Let's turn on your microphone.

Yeah, there we go.

I'm Carolyn Malone.

I live at 910 Marion Street.

And because I protest against Seattle police brutality, harassment, intimidation, and street corners, I've become a target by managers at my senior housing for eviction.

They are using an illegal instrument called real page compliance in order to deny my approval in housing.

Also, police lock me out of my apartment when I return.

Managers screen my phone calls, and surveillance is illegally set up in my apartment and throughout the building.

On May 3rd, this woman, Mary, was in the building, a vagrant.

She doesn't qualify to live in the building, but she was in the building doing fentanyl.

I took photos of her and her fentanyl in the women's restroom on the first floor.

This woman is now deceased mysteriously.

I'm not sure if she died in the building or someone killed her, but this is her fentanyl, this is more of it, and this is Mary in the building.

And because I took photos, took them to one of our meetings, the manager was incensed and decided to employ a device, a concocted scheme, to have me removed.

My rent is not applied each month.

Therefore, I supposedly owe $1,600.

$30.

I do not because the statements show that the rent is not applied.

This is all concerted to deny me housing because of my protests.

Thank you.

Ms. Malone, do you mind if I ask what neighborhood you live in?

Pardon?

What neighborhood?

What part of town?

First Hill, Capitol Hill, 910 Marion, three blocks from Harborview.

Okay, I'm happy to follow up with you after this.

Thank you.

I really need some investigation.

It's serious, very serious.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, our next speaker is Marguerite Richard.

Yes, according to the spirit of the Lord, you said, think it not strange when you are facing the fiery darts of the wicked.

And the reason why I say that is because this is the 21st century.

I don't think we need to repeat anything about civil rights.

A lot of people say that it's over.

Whatever happened in the 50s and the 60s, they've gone on to issues like climate change, et cetera.

And the reason why I'm mentioning that is because every year I have had to file a complaint in an institution that is supposed to be protecting people's human rights and civil rights.

It's ridiculous.

It's like, where do we go from here?

And Honorable Michael B. Fuller asked that question over and over again.

And the person that said that was the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

So that means that we take it wherever it needs to go, okay?

Just like someone talked about the Great Fire.

That was back in the 1800s, the Great Seattle Fire.

Then we had chopped jazz that tore up this city.

And I'm saying that indigenous black people are tired of being the brunt of your toolkits.

They have something else coming up with Puget Sound Regional Council on Institutional and Structural Racism.

I mean, just to hear that in your ear.

Then Katie Harmstrom down with the Customer Service Bureau sent me an email about why those signs are there with the Black Lives Matter.

And I said, since when is somebody called white I'm going to write an indigenous black female and tell them about what time it is right now.

Since when do you know how our clock ticks and what we're going to do next?

And I'm demanding that you leave us alone.

Thank you, Ms. Richard.

I don't see any other speakers signed up.

Okay, so that concludes our public comment period.

And we will move on to our first legislative item on the agenda.

Devin, will you please read items one through three into the record?

Agenda items one through three.

Appointment 2216. 2246 and 2247, appointment of Leslie Ann Anderson, Ricky Grabowski, and Danielle McLoone as members of the Seattle Arts Commission for terms to December 31st, 2023 for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you very much.

And we have with us Acting Director of the Office of Arts and Culture, Royal Alley Barnes, to introduce our commissioners.

Please go ahead.

Good morning.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Morales.

It's my pleasure to introduce to you the three nominees.

Danielle McClune, who's not able to join us this morning, but Danielle is a writer, a critic, a policy researcher.

She's based in Seattle by way of Milwaukee, and she's also a graduate of the Arts Leadership MFA program at Seattle University.

She actually has asked me to share her statement.

May I?

Yes, please.

Danielle writes, thank you to the arts staff, my fellow commissioners, and to the city council for inviting me to take part in this important work.

I look forward to meeting many of you in the future.

I've been astonished at the growth of Seattle over the past seven years I've lived and worked here.

My interest in serving as arts commissioner stems from lived experience as a working artist tossed against the moving walls of a city's progress.

I took for granted my early childhood arts education, which was still a given in the wealthy school districts, where I grew up in Wisconsin.

I knew from the jump that I was going to be a writer.

No one interfered with this dream or told me it was impractical.

I realized this as an incredible privilege to want to do something and to be free to do it.

I was given every opportunity to chase this passion until, of course, I was asked to be paid.

I feel strongly about the disenfranchisement of working artists and the near impossibility of making a life in Seattle on an artist's payroll.

My own career shifted unexpectedly to big tech.

I work at Microsoft, and I see this as a cautionary tale.

I don't want Seattle to keep growing at a breakneck pace in service to tech.

and at disservice to the arts.

I want Seattle to thrive because it's equitable, not because it's powerful.

And I believe that supporting the arts is the best way to make this city worth living in.

Thank you.

Have a wonderful weekend.

That is from Danielle McClain.

The other two nominees, Ricky Gaborski, this is a council appointment.

Mr. Gaborski currently serves as executive director of the Vera Project.

And as you all know, it's an all ages music venue, arts incubator, and community center in Seattle.

At Vera, Ricky has dedicated his time to advocating for the DIY scene and community centered cultural spaces.

always building all arts programming at the intersection of art and activism.

The third nominee, Leslie Anderson, mayoral appointment.

Leslie Anderson is the Director of Collections, Exhibitions, and Programs at the National Nordic Museum.

She leads the museum's efforts to provide meaningful and inclusive cultural experiences.

She also chairs their DEAI Advisory Committee and oversees the care and interpretation of 80 arts objects.

Those are summary introductions, if you will, Councilmember Morales of these nominees.

Thank you so much.

And thank you for sharing Danielle's statement with us.

Before we ask Leslie and Ricky to say a few words, I do want to acknowledge that Councilmember Lewis has joined us.

Okay, Leslie, do you want to begin?

Please share with us a little bit about why you're interested in being an arts commissioner.

Sure.

Well, my reason, Detra, has been to advocate for artists in the arts in my professional career.

I have been a collaborative art curator and museum professional with a broad purview spanning continents, periods, media, and over 20 exhibitions organized.

I've also been an educator and instructor of art undergraduate courses and charged with inspiring and engaging non-majors in art history and turning them on to a love of art.

Throughout my career, I've built bridges both internally with my colleagues at university, civic, state, and national museums, and externally with diverse communities.

And my work has really focused on supporting artists who have been historically sidelined due to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and religion.

I really want to support the city and its thriving arts community by drawing from these experiences to fulfill the mission of the Seattle Arts Commission.

Thank you very much, Leslie.

Colleagues, are there questions or comments for Leslie?

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

The National Nordic Museum is just such an asset to our community.

In Leslie's background is the gallery in the museum that is just across the hall from many classrooms and other places for people to gather.

One of the great parts about this new museum is that the gallery has museum standards for climate control so that we're able to have amazing art from around the world presented to our community.

Leslie, Sorry, that was a long way of saying, can you share with me what are the art pieces behind you in your background?

So in this particular image, it's a recent exhibition of work that was sent to us from Sweden's National Museum.

The exhibition was from Dante Dusk, Nordic art from Sweden's National Museum.

And it looked at a very important period in the development of Nordic art, that of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

That's wonderful.

What's hanging now and what's up next?

What's Hanging Now is an exhibition that looks at a cross-cultural examination of Norwegian and American landscape photography.

A period of mapping, of growth of infrastructure, but also it's important to recognize a displacement of peoples.

And so the exhibition is a photography examination that is also produced in in companion with a commissioned piece called Indigenous Core of Discoveries, Don't Go North, where a trio of artists are providing Indigenous interpretations of the photography that's on view, as well as a community celebration.

This will actually take place through the duration of next week in relation to the exhibition.

And what's coming up after that is a special exhibition of contemporary art by a Sámi artist, Thomas Colbankson, who has strong connection to the glassmaking community here in the Pacific Northwest, and Stina Folkebrandt.

And they will be exploring an episode of history that is little known in the U.S. and in the Nordic countries, that is the invitation of Sámi reindeer herders to Alaska for the purpose of teaching reindeer husbandry to Alaska Native peoples.

Sounds like you got a lot going on.

I'll have to come down and see for myself.

I'm really excited, and thank you for your volunteer service on this commission.

Thank you.

Yeah, those all sound amazing, and we should all go take a visit.

Thank you very much, Leslie.

Ricky, I think I saw Ricky here.

Is Ricky with us?

Ah, here we go.

Yes, hi, please.

Let us know a little bit about your interest in being the Seattle Arts Commissioner.

Great.

Thanks, folks.

Thanks for having me today.

Royal I really appreciate the introduction but again I'm Ricky Grabowski, he him.

I'm a community organizer, artist, musician and the executive director of the VR projects, a youth driven nonprofit music venue, arts hub and community space located at the Seattle Center.

I'd be honored to serve the Seattle Arts Commission to more directly collaborate with community stakeholders and developing policy and opportunities for young people to have both equitable access to our creative culture, and a more powerful voice and helping guide the future of our creative economy, as all of our creative industries.

are still in the process of recovering and honestly continuing to navigate the pandemic.

I'd love to join this incredible group of commissioners to help rebuild our creative communities and better serve the young folks most impacted by systemic oppression, gentrification-driven displacement, limited mental health resources, and homelessness, something we encounter every single day at the Vera Project.

I feel strongly that art is a vital tool in that fight and to address these crises and reduce harm in Seattle as a whole.

My background is primarily in advocacy work focused on youth leadership, DIY, so the underground and grassroots music scenes of Seattle and beyond, and our shared neurodivergent communities.

And I'm particularly excited to bring that expertise and lived experience to the Arts Commission.

Thanks again.

Thanks so much, Ricky.

You know, I think, and thank you for for all of the work you've shared with me I've gone down there a couple of times to look at the space to understand the mural work that you do the work that you do with young people and I think what's interesting here and really important is the thread between all our commissioners of really trying to make sure that we are preserving art space, preserving opportunity for artists to not just to practice their art or perform or to create art, but to be able to stay in the city while they do that.

That's going to be key to really maintaining Seattle as a culturally vibrant, beautiful place to be.

So I want to thank all of you for your willingness to serve on this volunteer board and for contributing to the ability of artists to stay in our community.

Council Member Nelson, please go ahead.

Thank you very much.

And thank you, Ricky for stepping up and wanting to serve.

I was a staffer on council when the all ages dance ordinance was was passed and and our office really defended and promoted the budget for Vera year after year it seems so I recognize that this The DRA is a huge asset, and anybody who can keep it going against everything that you've had to deal with and beyond, I have to say you've got the skills to be an important voice on the Commission.

And one thing, I'm Chair of Economic Development, so one thing I wanted to add is that What Vera also does is really help.

It really, it, it helps young people who are creating art and music.

figure out how they might be able to make a living at this.

And so it's, this is, you provide professional development and in a lot of other avenues of opportunity in that direction as well.

So for all the reasons you said in what I just did, I love Vera and I thank you for being willing to serve.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

Yeah.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

I'll just second what Council Member Nelson said.

While she was working on that, I was attending shows at the Vera Project when there was a labor temple that is now a church across the street from what used to be the labor temple.

The exposure to music at a young age, especially when folks under 21 weren't allowed into establishments to see a lot of music, it has made a profound impact on my life.

The work that you and those who came before you have done When I went to AmeriCorps and I met people from all across America, I thought everyone had that level of exposure to music, and it wasn't true.

And so as I traveled, I learned how special we have it in Seattle, and a lot of that has to do with your organization.

Looking forward to your service, and thank you for volunteering.

Great.

Okay, well, thanks, everybody.

Colleagues, I am going to move that the committee approve, recommend approval of appointments 2216, 2246, and 2247. Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend approval of the appointments.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Vice Chair Sawant?

Yes.

Chair Morales?

Yes.

Five in favor.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the council approve the appointments will be sent to the October 4th city council meeting.

Thank you all for being here and for your willingness to serve.

These will be placed on a consent agenda so you don't have to be at the full council meeting, but we look forward to working with you and thank you again.

Okay, will you please read item four into the record, Devin?

Agenda item four, appointment 2255, reappointment of Christina M. Sawicki as member Seattle Disability Commission for a term to August 30th, 2024 for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

For this and the next appointment, we have Janet Stafford from the Office of Civil Rights.

These are both reappointments, but Janet, I'm gonna go ahead and hand it off to you to remind us of these two commissioners.

Yes, thank you, Chair Morales, and good morning to all you council members.

The Disability Commission has collaborated on some of the policy changes that we have seen today, the closed captioning and the Seattle Straw Ban, Today, they would like to recommend Christina for her reappointment to the commission.

Just a little background on Christina.

She is a Seattle University graduate with an interdisciplinary studies degree and is currently enrolled at the University of Washington, pursuing her master's in public health.

She holds many identities very close to heart.

She is multicultural.

She was in the US Navy from 1987 to 1992, from which she became a disabled veteran.

She is active on many issues including homelessness, emergency management, transit, and accessibility.

Her interest is to continue working on policies that affect individuals and families with disabilities.

Since her term originally started in 2018, she has been pushing on a lot of these policies and she looks forward to her continued work on the commission.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Janet.

kind of awe-inspiring to look at all the things that Christina has going on and all the things that she is managing to do, and yet still willing to continue serving in this capacity.

So I want to send my thank you to her.

Colleagues, any questions for Janet about Christina?

Okay.

Well, then let's go ahead and move.

I'm going to move that we recommend approval of appointment 2255. Is there a second?

Thank you, it's been moved and seconded.

Devin, will you please call the roll?

Council member Strauss?

Yes.

Council member Lewis?

Yes.

Council member Nelson?

Aye.

Vice chair Sawant?

Yes.

Chair Morales?

Yes.

Five in favor.

Motion carries and the committee recommendation that council approve the appointment will be sent to the October 4th city council meeting.

Okay, Devin, will you please read item five into the record?

agenda item five, appointment 2256, reappointment of Andrew Ashiofu as member of the Seattle LGBTQ Commission for a term to April 30th, 2024 for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

Janet, I will hand it back to you.

Yes, thank you so much.

This is one of the reappointments the LGBTQ Commission is really excited to push forward.

Just a little background on Andrew, he is a second generation Nigerian American who was born in Houston and moved back to Nigeria.

And during this time he lived under military dictatorship, which helped motivate and inform his community involvement.

He participated in a number of organizations, such as the UN Youth Caucus of the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the House of Rainbow Nigeria.

Since moving back to the United States in 2016, he has been actively involved with the Black Lives Matter and has been an active commissioner on the Seattle LGBTQ Commission since 2021. He has been an active member in the commission operations.

He's taken a push on meeting with community, with delegates from international countries, and is currently the co-chair of the commission.

The commission is really looking forward to his reappointment and having Andrew continue his leadership this next year.

Thank you.

Thank you, Janet.

And I know Andrew is also very active in community.

He is a D2 resident, which I'm very excited about.

So looking forward to continuing to work with him.

Are there any questions or comments regarding Andrew's reappointment?

Okay.

Council Member Nelson, did you have a question?

Okay, I'm going to move that the committee recommend approval of appointment 2256. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Devin, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Nielsen?

Aye.

Vice Chair Sawant?

Yes.

Chair Morales?

Yes.

Five in favor?

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that council approve the appointments will be sent to the October 4th city council meeting.

Thank you so much for being here, Jenna.

Thank you.

Okay.

Devin, will you please read items six through 11 into the record?

Agenda items six through 11 appointments.

0 2 3 0 0 2 3 8 8 2 3 8 9 2 3 9 0 2 3 9 1 2 3 9 2 and 2 3 9 3. Appointments of Jeff Scott Abdullah, Joe Bechtold as members of Seattle Human Rights Commission for terms to July 22nd, 2023. Appointment of Tricia Diamond as a member of Seattle Human Rights Commission for a term to January 22nd, 2024. And appointments of Andrea Daly Michaud, Matthew Mitnick, and Mark Rogers as members of Seattle Human Rights Commission for terms to July 22nd, 2024 for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you very much.

We have with us Marta Itawu from the Office of Civil Rights to introduce these appointees.

I know the Human Rights Commission has been eager to get some more folks on board, so I'm glad we're able to get these folks in.

Marta, I'm gonna hand it over to you to introduce our appointees.

Okay, good morning.

My name is Marta Itawu.

I'm with the Seattle Office for Civil Rights, and I am the Civil Rights Advisory Commission Liaison for the Seattle Human Rights Commission.

and the Seattle Women's Commission.

The Seattle Human Rights Commission consists of 21 commissioners who are residents of Seattle or work in Seattle and are appointed to serve in an advisory capacity to the mayor, the city council, the Seattle Office for Civil Rights and city departments in matters affecting human rights.

Eight commissioners are appointed by the mayor, eight are appointed by the city council and four appointed by the commission.

Commissioners are appointed for a two-year term of office and serve without pay.

The 21st member joins the commission as a one-year term through the Get Engaged program, which is a leadership development program for youth 18 to 29 years old.

The Seattle Office for Civil Rights provides staff and support to the commissions.

These commission candidates have been attending meetings, and I just want to call out that we've already introduced their names, but I wanted you all to just vet a little bit, vet them a little bit on that they have already started coming to meetings, they've been participating in events that we've been doing, and they have been attending like meet and greets with the mayor and And then also we have like quarterly trainings that we have started to do for the commissions to see how we can help them and get them get more acclimated into city government and knowing the laws and OPMA rules and PRA, all those things, public disclosure, open public meetings act, ethics, things like that, things that they need to know to help make them and help them be successful in their work.

So, They are here, and if you'd like me to go and say a few things about them, or since they're here, Council Member Morales, I was planning to turn it back over to you and the members of your committee, fellow commissioners, excuse me, council members, and see if you all had any questions for them, and they're here to answer those questions that you have for them today.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Marta.

Okay, I will go through the list then.

Let's see, is Jeff Abdullah here?

I'm scanning my, scanning the list here.

I don't see Jeff.

I can say something about him if you'd like me to.

Okay, go ahead.

Okay, so Jeff Abdullah is a professional advocate and consultant for youth and family services in Washington State.

He works closely with agencies around Washington as well as around the world to produce programs that effectively change the structure of foster care.

He grew up in multiple places around the country to include Minnesota and Pennsylvania before finally settling in Seattle.

He has transitioned into careers and developed many skills and interests that led him where he is today.

And he's excited to take this leap into working with the Seattle Human Rights Commission.

He sees a lot of connecting things in ways that he can bring his skills to the table and highlight things that are happening in the line of work that he's doing around youth and families.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Marta.

OK, let's go to Jo Bechtold.

Jo, do you want to talk a little bit?

Good morning.

Please go ahead, Jo.

I'll just say a little bit about myself and my work.

Sure.

Great, great.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Jo Bechtold.

I use she, her pronouns.

I grew up in rural Montana in a house that was under-resourced.

My mom was in and out of the prison industrial complex that really gave me a deep empathy for folks who are incarcerated.

I went to school at Seattle University.

I was lucky enough to receive a pretty generous scholarship.

And now I work in public policy.

I work at the Mockingbird Society, whose organization values are to end youth homelessness and transform the foster care system.

And I'm really passionate about that work, so I'm really passionate about coming up with humane ways to deal with our house since this crisis.

Yeah, and love of our people in the incarceration system.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jo.

Next, we have Andrea Daley-Michaud.

Hi, good morning, everyone.

Can everyone hear me?

I'm using headphones today.

We can hear you.

Go ahead.

All right, well, my name is Andrea Daily Michaud and I thank you for having me here this morning.

I've had a lot of experience with working in education and community and my reason for working with this commission is that I've noticed a lot of changes over the years and I really want to get more youth involved in social justice and the situations that are occurring right now that are affecting schools and communities.

I have done a lot of work with Friends of Jamaica, Seattle, the Black Education Alliance, and other community experiences.

But most of all, my own experience has triggered me to really want to get a lot more involved.

And I'm particularly interested in connecting with the Disability Commission as much as possible as well.

So I thank you for having me and I'll do my best to do what is needed.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Andrea.

Next, we have Tricia Diamond.

Is Tricia here?

Hello.

Yes, I am.

Good morning.

Good morning.

My name is Tricia Diamond.

A little bit about my background.

I grew up and was raised in New Orleans and Los Angeles.

I attended Seattle University.

But before that, I attended Kolforskolf in Amsterdam.

So I left and moved to the Netherlands for a bit for my education, Technical University of Delft.

And then I returned to the United States, returning to to Seattle in 2008, so I've been here 14 years.

My background in terms of career has been spanned everything from education, so working as a STEM and English language learner instructor, as well as aviation, until now, detention management.

There's a common thread through my work that I believe connects to the Human Rights Commission, which I'm excited about helping strategically and aggressively address human trafficking, because that's something that I've seen throughout my career that I would like to address probably when I was a child, even in Los Angeles in 1984, when we had the Olympics and being really at seeing that and wanting to make sure that I would do something about that when I was older.

I think that human trafficking is really a human rights issue or definitely a human rights issue because it really impacts people in different vulnerable populations in terms of economic, racial, ethnic, gender discrimination.

All of those oppressions really are solidified in human trafficking.

And I would like to support the commission in this area.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tricia.

Really, really eager to be working with you and to hear more about your experience and how we might start to address some of those issues here in the county.

The Pacific Northwest is certainly, unfortunately, one of the areas where human trafficking is sort of rampant.

Okay, let's move on to Matthew Mitnick, and then we will hear from Mark Rogers.

Hello everyone, my name is Matthew I use him pronouns, I am currently a graduate student at the University of Washington and the Evans school and kind of like everything I want to do is really turn like what the community wants into tangible policy but I think to get there we have to.

you know, bring those voices in and help them navigate these structures, because government is huge bureaucracy.

And I feel like on the Human Rights Commission, we can make it more accessible for folks, we can bring them into conversations where we're not just checking boxes, but rather having their voices help us implement what they want to see.

And, you know, before I went to the University of Washington, I studied at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and there, Several students and I we we organized in the city commissions and committees and it was just really powerful to see what happened when you just brought folks into public policy and previously I worked for the King County Housing Authority and just.

Talking with clients, folks who are receiving vouchers who need the housing assistance and hearing their stories and navigating these structures really affirmed to me why, you know, Human Rights Commission City Council why these bodies are so important right and how we can make changes that impact folks and that's something I just want to continue doing a little bit more about me on campus for UW.

I've been organizing with students for labor rights, for affordable housing.

We secured funding for like the Child Care Assistance Program, the Ethnic Cultural Center, and just, again, seeing what joy brought folks when they were listened to and brought into the policy circles was something really special and something I hope to continue.

So thank you.

Thank you, Matthew.

And then our last appointee is Mark Rogers.

Hi.

Thank you.

Thank you all for having me here.

I'm honored to share this space with you.

So my name is Mark.

I use he, him pronouns.

Presently, I work as a nurse at Harborview Medical Center.

As a young person, I experienced homelessness and later did social work first as an AmeriCorps volunteer.

then as an outreach worker with Youth Care.

It was there that I, at Youth Care, I worked with a colleague on a documentary about homeless youth.

And then I later went to film school at Seattle Central, and then later returned to school at the University of Washington to complete a nursing degree.

And then I came to Harborview.

And it's primarily this population that the Harborview Mission population that I'm interested in serving.

And I believe strongly that health is a human right.

And I'm very interested in population health and improving health outcomes for individuals in our society who are more often marginalized.

It's wonderful to work at the bedside to advocate for patients and see positive outcomes, but I recognize that the system is immensely flawed and I believe that COVID has really illuminated these inequities in our society.

And while I do not pretend to have solutions, I would like to bring kind of a social work nursing lens to the Human Rights Commission.

because I believe that health is a universal human right.

And I believe that I'm charged by my professional community to work toward advancing health for all individuals and populations and that nursing is not confined to the walls of a hospital.

So I would love the opportunities to participate in systems level advocacy for vulnerable populations in our community.

Sorry, it was a little long-winded, but basically that's-

Quite all right.

Thank you, Mark.

I think it's important that we have sort of a breadth of experience and an interest because you're right.

There are all of these systems are connected when it comes to how we treat our neighbors, whether it's health care or housing or the foster care system.

And so I want to thank all of you for your interest in serving.

I think Jeff, Jeff Abdullah is with us.

Jeff, if you want, would like to say anything.

before we take a vote, please go ahead.

Yeah, it's so nice to meet you.

Thank you very much, Marta, for reading my bio.

My Zoom froze at the wrong time, but if it's okay, I'll go ahead and just say what I was going to say before.

So hello, everyone.

Thank you for having me today.

My name is Jeff Abdullah.

I use he, him pronouns, and I reside in the land of the Duwamish people.

I'm a veteran, a youth advocate, and a foster care agency consultant.

I currently work as a family program manager with the Mockingbird Society, whose mission it is to end youth homelessness.

After my honorable discharge in 2018 I immediately wanted to dive into my support for my new community in Seattle.

I come to the commission with a passion for advocating for youth in our community and making a difference for our future.

My passion for youth advocacy and ending youth homelessness has only grown with my time at Mockingbird Society and in order for our city to reach its full potential, we cannot rest until every youth is in a home which they feel safe, loved, and protected.

As it stands, our agencies, work culture, and policies have not been conducive to the future of our youth and the future of our society.

After departing the Navy, I knew I wanted to make a difference in the lives of young people and who will make the same differences in the future.

So far, I've been blessed to have the opportunity to speak with youth agencies all over the country and all over the world to collaborate on new innovative ways to protect families and foster our children.

If recommended for this commission, I will do my best to uplift those voices and to truly make Seattle the city we know it can be.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Jeff.

Again, I want to thank everybody for your willingness to serve.

Colleagues, are there questions or comments for any of our appointees?

I don't see any.

OK.

In that case, I'm going to move that committee recommend approval of appointments 2388, 2389, 2390, 2391, 2392, and 2393. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Vice Chair Sawant?

Yes.

Chair Morales?

Yes.

Five in favor.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the council approve appointments will be sent to the October 4th city council meeting.

Let's see.

It looks like the Zoom is muted on your PC, Devin.

We were having some technical challenges.

We hear you now.

Okay.

Are we good to go?

Yeah.

We believe so.

Okay, sorry for the disruption.

I'm going to hand it over to the Department of neighborhoods.

Hello happy Friday, my name is Malia Brooks, I am the reimagination recovery division director and the Department of neighborhoods and i'm joined here by Jackie Mina and i'll give Jackie a chance to introduce herself.

hi everyone i'm Jackie minnow with the Department of neighborhoods and i'm the Community wealth and investments lead.

Awesome.

Thank you so much for having us here today.

Jackie and I are truly excited to present to you an update on our generational wealth initiative.

While the initiative is staffed through our department, our generational wealth team see ourselves as facilitators of a larger city process.

We want to just take a moment to thank and give some shout outs to our generational wealth IDT members representing 11 different city departments who have supported every aspect of our work and help envision true learning and integration and how we can work as one city.

Also want to give a shout out to our amazing consultant teams, our generational wealth round table, which is made up of 17 community members representing housing developers, entrepreneurs, artists, and community advocates.

They have also helped ensure that our work reflects the needs and dreams of communities most impacted by the racial wealth divide and challenge us to work differently as city government.

Throughout our work, our partners, we've learned that generational wealth is more than just about money.

Looking at this quote, it is a key frame for understanding how racial injustice has created a racial wealth divide and has produced consequences we see everywhere, every day.

Generational wealth is a key to liberating people of color from systemic oppression.

built by community.

Just to give you a refresher, our initiative was catalyzed by the 2020 protest for racial justice.

The equitable communities initiative task force, in particular, identified generation wealth as a key area of focus for the city and made a number of significant investments to support new and existing programs to build wealth.

Additionally, Council issued a statement of legislative intent, where they asked Department of Neighborhoods, with support from the Office of Planning and Community Development and the Office of Economic Development, to explore investments in wealth building and identify gaps and opportunities.

The data that is demonstrated The data demonstrates that the most impacted by the racial divide, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Pacific Islander communities are facing huge barriers in achieving individual and collective well-being.

Here on the screen, you see a few of the data points to help us frame what the problem looks like here locally.

Across socioeconomic data, we know systems are failing communities of color.

The statistics we pulled here that you see today are from the Prosperity Announced Racial Wealth Divide Report in Seattle, where this report was released in 2018. Highlighting just one of these data points, we see a huge gap in the value of businesses.

The average white-owned business in the city of Seattle is valued at more than 12 times higher than the average black-owned business.

This is a critical highlight because entrepreneurship is a major opportunity for closing the wealth gap.

So when we began our work and started to pull together internal and external stakeholders, a core question that folks had that kept coming up was, what do we actually even mean by generational wealth?

And so when we pulled together a community roundtable, rather than having the city answer that question, we really turned to our community advisors to do that.

And they developed this working definition for us, which is pretty simple, right?

Investments in generational wealth protect and grow assets that people are able to transfer between generations.

They also provided some values for us to really understand what investments in generational wealth look like.

And that includes that these investments grow and transfer knowledge.

They are immediate actions that are leading towards a long term impact.

Our investments should be regenerative assets, not one-time infusions, and they should create pathways to transformative economic opportunity.

They also want to see us as a city invest proactively and not reactively.

One thing to really call out if we go back one thing to really call out in this is that when we think about generational wealth as a frame for the city it's really about.

Thinking in that long term right what you see in these values and in this definition is about.

Making investments today that can lead to outcomes for future generations, and I think that's something that's really special about thinking about our work through a generational wealth or a generational frame.

So in addition to those two things our roundtable also helped us really understand what are we building towards what is that vision for impact and three key components to their vision is that investments in BIPOC communities who have been most impacted resulting cultural political and economic power.

BIPOC communities are able to build the systems and institutions that enable communities to thrive, and opportunities in education, home ownership, land ownership, and business are attained equitably and lead to collective wealth.

So when so tackling the racial wealth divide is a huge undertaking, and we know that it's the city of Seattle has a role to play.

But this is really a national issue right so we could turn to the federal government to do a lot of different things and other entities.

And because of that we really wanted to understand what is our unique role as the city of Seattle.

We know that the City of Seattle continues to play a role locally in sustaining and growing the racial wealth divide.

So how do we understand and learn from our own history?

And again, what is that unique role that we can play in healing those past harms, those past places where we've enabled and perhaps even perpetrated actions that have strengthened the racial wealth divide?

And ultimately, what is our role in building a more equitable future.

So to really tackle that that question those questions, our team developed a theory of change.

to help us understand how we can heal those past harms.

Our theory of change states that when we create city alignment, when we create pipelines for communities to engage, when we look to those most impacted for the solutions, and when we make direct investments based on what we're hearing, we actually get to the impact that we want to see.

We realize that vision that community has set for us.

So with that in mind, this year, you know, again, huge undertaking and Council, you didn't make it easy for us, you asked us some really big questions or asked us to work on answering some really big questions.

Just as a refresher the statement of legislative intent asked us for a comprehensive evaluation of the city's programs a gaps and.

identification of gaps and opportunities to most effectively deliver programs and services to Community and an outline of how the city can provide a consistent ladder out of poverty.

We this year have been able to initiate five really big things and so they're on this slide as a summary but i'm going to go into more depth about each of them, so we could just.

Move to the next slide.

So creating pipelines for community engagement and leadership.

We've done that through three main channels.

We've built a participatory process with our community roundtable.

One thing that was really important to us was to recognize that while this might be a new lens for the city to use in understanding our work, it's by no means new to community.

There's been so much advocacy and organizing around economic equity, racial equity, And so we really wanted to learn from and connect to those existing efforts.

And our third channel is we've been elevating community voice through engagement at local events and we've been able to connect with hundreds of folks in different neighborhoods who identify as people who are most impacted by the racial wealth divide to really understand what generational wealth could do for them and their families.

So through that process we've heard a lot of different things, and we just wanted to highlight a few of them.

A big message that we heard across the board is that generational wealth isn't just about money it's about Community well being and wellness.

we've also heard that building wealth is a way to stay in place and protect communities in the long term.

You know, through our conversations, lots of folks point back to housing, housing security, being able to stay and grow in their neighborhoods, you know, ensuring that their children have the opportunity to grow up like they did, to be part of the same community fabric that served them in becoming who they are today.

And so really, again, thinking about that vision of staying in place and being able to continue to contribute.

to our local communities.

We've also heard that generational wealth is not a one strategy solution.

It's a framework that can help us impact everything from day-to-day experiences to a whole community context.

And when we say community context, that really means parks, streets, community centers, spaces to gather, all those good things, right?

Generational wealth is a way of understanding our investments in all of those places.

And then lastly, we've heard that generational wealth is about power and ownership over your lived experience.

And so I included this quote from Kelvin Donqua, who is one of our roundtable members.

Kelvin works for the Office of African Male Achievement, which is part of the Seattle Public School System, and he works with young Black teens just about every day.

And when he talks to, you know, folks who are on the precipice of their adulthood, right, leaving the school system and really starting to forge their own path, When he asked them, what are you looking for?

What do you want to build for yourself?

The overall message has been folks are looking for stability, mobility, and freedom.

And when he shared that at a roundtable meeting, it really resonated with everyone and felt like a great summary of a lot of what we've heard in our conversations with folks.

So really just through this program, trying to build opportunities for stability, mobility, and freedom for our residents.

So another big area that we've been working and and I forgot to shout out headwater people they've been supporting us with our engagement.

And in terms of researching our strategies that people's economy lab has been a huge leader in helping us think through what other models exist across the country for.

tackling the racial wealth divide.

They started off their work trying to understand the problem locally and the opportunities for building wealth.

And so we've actually adopted this McKinsey framework for how wealth is built and how you achieve economic mobility.

And what they found was that most people build their wealth through these four main areas.

That's family wealth, family income, family savings, and community context.

So we've used this frame to engage community and really understanding what are the barriers that exist within each of those spaces.

So here you see an image of an exercise that we did.

It's pretty illegible, but it's mostly just to show you the exercise itself.

And so this is from one of our roundtable meetings.

where we asked folks, again, using those four nodes to really map out what barriers exist, what systems do they know exist and wish they had more support in navigating or wish they had more information about.

And so using this and other engagement when we're asking folks about how they're building wealth and the barriers that they're encountering, we've actually started to define key investment focus areas.

So some of the early findings of our research and the big overall statement is how we invest matters.

So again, we have those four different nodes where we know people build wealth.

And the interesting thing is that the city of Seattle invests in all of those areas, right?

Whether we consider them wealth building or not, the city is investing in a community context through our roads, through our investments in schools, through our public utilities.

family income, family savings, family wealth as well, right?

Through all of our programs, we're somehow supporting wealth in these areas.

But without a macro focus on racial and economic equity, we'll continue to invest in these areas and build wealth for folks in ways that continue to strengthen the racial wealth divide.

And so it's really important for us to think about which of our programs are building wealth, right?

And how can we really focus those in?

to have racial and economic equity outcomes.

Additionally, in that how we invest matters, we have those six different areas that are unique to Seattle for where and how we should be investing.

The six areas that we've identified are broad-based worker ownership, community-controlled capital, a community ownership of real estate, progressive procurement, equitable small business ecosystems, wealth retention and asset protection programs.

And so, again, the city of Seattle has existing programming and some of these and and huge gaps and others and so it's, it'll be really interesting for us to take a deeper dive and really think through.

again, those gaps and opportunities.

And I know there's a lot packed into this slide.

So if you're interested in scheduling a briefing with the Department of Neighborhoods, just so we could talk a little bit further about this, feel free to do it.

Happy to share our research thus far.

Another thing that we were asked to create was an inventory and impact evaluation, and so thank you to the VITA agency who's really been supporting us and getting an understanding of our current investments.

And thank you to just about every single city department.

We could not understand the investment if it weren't for program leads, department leadership directors being super open to having conversations with us and helping us understand where perhaps we're making these investments in wealth building.

And so the key questions that were driving this inventory and evaluation impact is just the assumption that we know that the city is already investing in wealth building, but what are those investments?

What is the impact of those investments?

And what are our goals with those investments?

How do we know if we're advancing them?

Those were big questions that both the ECI Task Force, the Equitable Communities Initiative Task Force, and council put to us.

And so we've started to tackle, but it really is a huge undertaking.

So some of the early findings from that work.

And again, just, I wanna just state, this is phase one.

The truth is we make so many investments as a city and really getting a big picture understanding of those is gonna take time and it's gonna take meticulous work.

Some of the things that we've realized in the process of trying to build that inventory is that a lot of departments and whether it's departments programs staff leads, or even our intermediaries so CBO is who.

A partner with the city to distribute our resources across the board, there is missing capacity and resources to actually track and evaluate our impact.

Additionally, there's no unified way that we as a city are targeting communities equitably and what I mean by this is from department to department program to program.

We are targeting, some programs are targeting BIPOC communities, some low-income communities, some communities that live in anti-displacement areas or areas of high displacement.

Other heat maps sort of point us towards communities that have been divested from So we're using all sorts of ways to really target communities.

And what that what that creates is actually our work happening in silo and so the note here really is having a macro focus can help us really know who we're targeting together and making sure that our investments are having that total impact and really connecting to the communities that are most impacted by the racial wealth divide.

Additionally, what we're finding is that funding source and funding type matters, so you know, a lot of wealth investments that departments have identified are one-time investments, and so it's really hard with a one-time investment to be able to gauge what that long-term impact of the investment actually will be.

Will it move the needle in the long term?

We've also found that different funding sources have restrictions, right?

You know that very well as stewards of our city budget.

So what you can actually accomplish with different funding sources puts restrictions on the impact and also on reporting requirements.

And so again, when we're trying to understand our impact based on different funding sources, there's different reporting that's required, different tracking that's required.

And then lastly, to end on a good note, one of the things that has been really exciting through this process is actually realizing that the City of Seattle, our staff, are hungry to tackle these questions, right?

We have had so much support from every single department that has participated in this work.

in just thinking through what are some of those barriers to really understanding our collective impact and and people are excited to participate in shared strategic planning and alignment so that's that really means that there's an opportunity here for us as a city to move as one city and to make a more intentional investments or develop a more intentional investment strategy for tackling the racial wealth divide.

So just a couple more slides to go through, but one of the big things that we're doing this year is actually making direct investments based on what community has directed us to do.

And so the Equitable Communities Initiative Task Force provided DON with funds to support education and navigation of our city programs.

And this year we're on track to fund pilots that will help cultivate long-term economic empowerment through education and innovative learning structures.

These pilots are designed to help individuals, families, and communities gain the knowledge to overcome barriers to wealth building.

They will be presenting learning and support structures for participants that can help build power and set the groundwork for transforming unjust systems.

So again, really trying to provide an immediate resource that hopefully can support that long term vision for change.

And lastly, you know these pilots will be tailored to meet the unique needs and dreams of those most impacted by the racial wealth divide so again really making sure that our investments are are tailored to what we're hearing from the communities most impacted by the racial wealth divide.

Thank you, Jackie.

As Jackie noted in our 2022 work updates, the last item we wanted to highlight is the work from our citywide learning and integration.

We know that transformative change isn't just about investments, it's also about ensuring that the city, every program, every staff member understands the issues and has the tools to embed solutions in their work.

And we've done this in four key ways.

We've launched a series of Lunch and Learns where we've invited community researchers to share their work and provide city staff for ideas on how they can support solutions.

The Lunch and Learns have been truly invaluable.

It's not just about the integration into supporting community, but also ourselves.

As we know, the city workforce is very reflective of Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities.

Second, where we've tackled citywide learning integration is by initiating partnerships with departments to take the research and apply it into existing programs for transformative change.

An example is working with human service department as a key partner and thinking how they can apply our research to their own funding programs.

We're also working with Diana Canzoneri, the city demographer, to expand the EDMP program to include indicators on economic equity, as well as the racial wealth divide.

And then lastly, we are working, as Jackie noted, with the education and empowerment pilots.

We wanna make sure that those pilots strengthen black, indigenous, and people of color's access to programs and funding here in the city of Seattle.

So we've shared a ton of information with you today and I, you know, we just want to make sure that as you are.

just these four things that we want to make sure that you see.

One, you know, for us in carrying this out and having conversations, what we've realized is that the city really needs a strong vision and structure to organize behind.

You know, we're always talking about being one city and really making sure that our investments are leveraging one another, that they're maximizing our impact.

Well, if we are organized behind a strong vision and structure that really gives us the space to ensure that all of our investments are moving in the same direction and.

It helps break silos between departments and it really fixes what we're seeing right now, which is that program by program department by department.

We are measuring success differently we are setting standards for success differently and so what would it look like for us to actually all be in line and have that one that one strong central vision.

We also another big thing that we've discovered right is that equity requires measuring impact and evaluating our investments.

When we make investments, but we don't actually know whether they're moving the needle whether they're moving us towards the outcomes that vision that we want to see it's really difficult to know whether we're putting our money in the right places and so.

Investing in measuring our impact and evaluating our investments is probably one of the most important ways that we can align with our equity goals and really understand what our pathway, what our roadmap is for getting to that that vision that we want to see.

We must translate research into action.

Malia mentioned that we've been hosting Lunch and Learns.

Most recently, we had Seattle King County and AACP come and share some of their research on the racial wealth divide that they've done with their members.

One message that they left us with was that sometimes the city thinks that research is the action and it's not the action.

We really want to encourage our city to translate our research into action to actually follow up with the research that's being done, not just by us, by departments across the board, right, who are looking to innovate and learn, really responding to that research through pilots, through initiating new funding sources, through thinking through how can we actually implement that research and test it out and see if it's a good fit for our city.

And lastly, investing in citywide learning and integration.

So a key component of this initiative is just recognizing that it's not about building something on the side, right?

We're not trying to bring a whole new side investment in generational wealth.

It's really about transforming how we function as a city.

And one of the most effective ways to transform our city and how it functions is to actually activate our staff to be part of that change.

So each staff member has the opportunity to support communities and accessing services and resources.

How are we supplying them with the knowledge and the tools that they need to help ensure that the city is building towards our equity goals.

Investing in that is extremely important to changing us as an entity in a holistic way.

Okay, so we hope you're asking what's next.

This is just the first of three presentations we'll be providing to Council.

We have a preliminary report that we'll be sharing on our engagement research and inventory in January 2023, and we'll also be sharing our final report with Council in August of 2023. So as Jackie noted, have been some really big questions asked and we just want to emphasize it's going to take longer than a couple of years to truly move the city to address the racial wealth divide locally.

But we hope you see that our updates and our reports as an opportunity to consider how you can help guide the city towards supporting those most impacted by the racial wealth divide and reaching their dreams for generations to come.

Thank you.

Wow, thank you so much, Jackie and Malia.

This is fantastic, really exciting to know that the work is beginning to synthesize what our city departments do, what information we need to really be able to assess the impact that we have now and that we could have if we start to do our work better.

And I think that is a key piece of what we need to do.

And, you know, part of You talked a little bit about having a structure that's needed.

I think a lot of the work that that you're doing that many of our departments do around the race and social justice initiative.

is beginning to guide us in that direction.

But, you know, part of the conversation we've been having is how we can put some teeth behind that.

And I think having a structure that everybody can mark their, you know, benchmark, assess, determine over the long haul what the evaluation piece is important.

And as you said, Jackie, you know, it's great.

I'm excited to see the list of strategies for increasing economic mobility and economic empowerment.

But the question is, how do we move beyond research into action?

And as you said, I know this is going to take some time.

So I think we're on the right track.

And I'm excited to see where we go.

Council Member Nelson, please go ahead.

Oh, did she freeze or did I freeze?

Council Member Nelson?

Yep, just unmuting.

Thank you very much for this presentation.

I support this initiative.

And haven't you already made a lot of grants?

I mean, this isn't just or am I completely confused?

Hasn't?

Because didn't you do a round of funding last year or this year?

Please help me understand that I'm not thinking about something else.

No, our will be working on pilots with community and those will be coming online within about a month or so, but in terms of contracting and then the the pilots will then and will also evaluate the pilots through 2023. Okay, and.

Yeah, and I should just add that.

So the initial investment that helped fund this research and all of the work that we're doing came from the Equitable Communities Initiative Task Force.

And they actually did fund more than just D.O.N. in different types of existing and new programming that they felt fit within this generational wealth vision.

And so you're right that other departments have started funding in different ways.

Okay, thanks.

I think I remember seeing a list of those.

Okay.

Well, like I said, I'm supportive of this effort, and I'm a real fan of not siloing work, and you did say that you're working with the Office of Economic Development, which is great, because just their vision is Seattle is a vibrant, innovative diversity with an inclusive economy that ensures all Seattleites can thrive and share in the opportunities of the future.

Expanding opportunities for building generational wealth is a central focus of their work when it comes to access to capital and even coming up small business ownership opportunities, because it's not just good for the small business owners in these communities, it's also important for those jobs and to keep those nodes, those neighborhood centers intact.

So are you working at all with the business improvement area representatives?

You know, the BIAs in, well, it's not a BIA in Little Saigon, but Soto and other parts of the city, because they're working directly with BIPOC business owners and know really well what is needed in the building generational wealth category.

I think you said VITA is leading that work.

So the VITA agency is supporting us with developing our internal inventory.

So really understanding our current impact and investments.

But through our roundtable, so we have Dennis from the Central Area Collaborative represented.

We're also working with different community entities to develop case studies, those histories around where has the city been involved in creating the racial wealth divide right, because we need to know that history in order to know how to remedy it, how to heal it.

And so definitely partnerships with folks in different business areas is going to be really important.

This is year one so expanding those partnerships even further, I think, is a goal of ours and a dream of ours, because we know that so much incredible work is happening in different spaces.

Our interdepartmental team has actually been an incredible resource for us in doing our work.

So you mentioned OED.

We recently had OED's deputy director come and share the shape of Seattle's future economy report with us.

And so really exciting to see that some of the work groups that they're hoping to connect or to engage with actually tackle some of the things that we've shared in this presentation are important places for the city to be investing.

And so hopefully there's some synergy there where we can plug into some of the community engagement work that they're going to be doing.

And perhaps plug folks who have already been in that conversation with us into those spaces, right, as continued places for them to be part of this work that the city is doing.

Thank you very much.

I see that Council Member Strauss has his hand up.

So I do have another question, but I'm going to let him have a turn.

Thanks.

Why don't you go ahead Councilmember.

Councilmember Nelson, if you want to just keep going.

Well, I'm already off mute.

Look, I'll keep it quick Jackie.

I'm just so thankful for this presentation that next steps, the work that you've done with headwater people consulting their great work.

What we know is that generational change is based upon the financial stability oftentimes of a family.

And so there's no faster way to make generational change and building that generational wealth.

And I'm just so happy that the two of you are working on it on behalf of Department of Neighborhoods.

No questions, nothing to add, just really like the clarity that you provided us, making sure we remember we're one Seattle, we have to have one vision and this is important to have in it.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Nielsen.

Well, this leads to the next one, I guess.

Are members of your work group part of the interdepartmental team of the participatory budgeting process?

Because it sounds like a lot of the goals are really, well, a lot of the goals are the same when it comes to direct investments.

So are you guys, or is that completely separate?

Our team has met with OCR and have definitely been looking for spaces to partner, I think it's you know it's all about timing and the right places to connect, and so I think that's what we're really trying to figure out is how we can.

Absolutely support that effort, knowing that it came out of the same movement that that initiated the investments that led to this work right and so.

For community, it's not about these different places where the work is happening.

It's all part of that shared goal around racial equity.

And so making sure that our work is talking to one another and that we're supporting one another in the execution of these investments, I think is a real big value for our team.

Thank you.

That's exactly right, Jackie.

And we will be hearing from OCR next.

So I'm excited to have that on the deck here too.

Any other questions for our Department of Neighborhoods team?

Okay.

I want to thank you both for being here.

There's a lot of important work happening.

And, you know, I do want to invite my colleagues to get a separate briefing if there's more specific information that you want.

But I'm really happy that we are moving this direction and continue, we'll look forward to continuing to get updated from you.

Thank you so much.

Colleagues, we have somebody here who is asking us to reopen public comment.

He's been waiting, had to come from work, and so if there's no objection, I am going to reopen public comment for just two minutes to accommodate somebody who's trying to get here in between work schedule.

I hear no objection.

One second, sir.

One second.

So we are going to reopen the public comment period for two minutes.

And our one public commenter is Sami Sad.

Please go ahead.

Listen to me, right?

Yes, please.

This is very important because you guys say not finding community.

I'm one of the first black on dispensary to help in a city.

And I have a junk remover company.

It's sad when they take from us, me and Libby and Kevin Shelton.

They said, let's go pass the law.

It's between a 70. We're still not being acknowledged.

They meet with my community.

Hundreds of people came to Matt Baker station and they met with Melanie Morgan and I've been disrespected by her.

She cut me off on the social equity and that's against the law.

We've been used by Paula Saldana.

She called me and she used the F word on me if I stopped talking about alligators.

Alligators work for the LCB using black people.

She gave her boyfriend, Jim Buchanan, a license.

He does not exist in the medical industry.

If you guys want to help us, reach out to me.

My phone number is 206-742-1535.

This is not fair and not equal.

I have people in the community, they say they need to take a truck and hit that LCB and the mayor.

Yes, the people are frustrated.

I came here for love.

I said, no, this is wrong.

Not right, guys.

They say, Sam, you're being discriminated.

Those people are not going to help you.

Look at behind me.

Anybody black look like you?

So the people, they talk and listen to me.

They cannot be the judge and the prosecutor.

They have to listen to the community.

You guys not having enough comment.

If the people get late, they should just write to speak.

I really thank you to allow me to speak today.

This is frustrating.

And this is bringing my money start.

People being robbed, because what distinct from the LCB, they thinking money.

We oppose the bill, the legislator, they treat us like delegate.

They make it a still pass and they ask him, Mr. Saad, what happened?

Why you make it fail?

Senator Patty Gruyere won this bill.

I said, well, this Ellie Garrett over here, she said she will help me in a public, in a Lucien Cena, when we publicly And after I have a lot of support, a hundred of support.

Well, I call her phone.

She said, do not call my phone ever again.

Gosh, if I have update, I'll call you.

We're being used by Mendoza, by Chris Thompson.

He said he have three percent black people in medical canopies.

And after that, I asked him, we asked him, me, Christopher King, all of us do.

How many how many people he said?

I don't know how many.

So how did you come with percentage?

It's a lie and a lie.

And I need to be with those people, too, to represent my you know, my people.

We are more than sixty five Washington.

We need to be acknowledged.

Senator, you need to listen to us.

You guys need to listen.

This is not fair at all.

This is frustrating.

I'm bringing the mic so we can continue on our agenda.

Thank you.

OK.

We're gonna move on to agenda item 13. Okay, Devin, will you please read agenda item 13 into the record?

Agenda item 13, office for civil rights update on the city of Seattle participatory budgeting program for briefing and discussion.

Okay, thank you.

We have the Office of Civil Rights here.

I do wanna make just a couple of quick remarks before we get started.

I really wanna thank the Department of Neighborhoods for kind of leading us into this conversation.

We know that under-resourced communities suffer from higher unemployment, from poor access to things like medical and healthcare, mental healthcare.

And so what we're really trying to do here as a city is change the community conditions that lead to some of these problems and really, and start moving in a way that we can create greater community wealth, particularly in our communities of color.

So our next presentation is about the participatory budgeting process that offers one example of one strategy that can help us do just that.

It's a community identified strategy for direct investment and can lead to better housing, access to healthcare, community wealth.

So for those who may be new to the discussion, just a quick bit of background.

Participatory budgeting is a democratic process in which community members recommend to their local government how to spend a part of public budget for communities, and it empowers community members to work with the government to make budget decisions that affect their lives.

In 2020, in response to the racial uprising and community calls for the city to acknowledge and to begin to repair the harm done to black and brown communities, we expanded our participatory budgeting program.

I do want to say, I do think it's important to note that, you know, in the past participatory budgeting has really been used to kind of divide people, and to sort of dismiss the voices of some of our black and brown neighbors.

I think it's also really important that we turn the page on that narrative, and that we really move toward a more productive conversation that honors the community's call for meaningful engagement in government investments.

So I'm hopeful that, you know, we have a new executive who's committed to one Seattle.

So I'm hoping that we can really re-engage this process and implement the program in a way that others can look to as a model.

So this is going to be the first in a series of presentations on the executive's work to implement PB.

We'll hear again from the Office of Civil Rights on December 9th, but I thought it was important that before the budget process, we hear a little bit about an update on how we will plan to use the money that's been set aside for participatory budgeting.

Okay, with that, today we're going to hear from OCR and the work that they're doing with a contracted facilitator, the Participatory Budget Project.

The purpose of that contract is to directly invest in black and brown communities, which is consistent with the city's, you know, sort of fundamental government function of remedying disparities.

The purpose is also to increase the ownership and participation of city residents in solutions to the city's pressing needs.

So I really think it is in the interest of this committee to ensure that the work is moving forward under the leadership of the executive staff.

And I'm looking forward to hearing from OCR.

After OCR's presentation, we'll be hearing from the King County Project and some of the challenges and work that they had in delivering their program.

Okay, so with all of that, I am going to hand it over to, let's see, who is presenting from Office of Civil Rights?

Is it John?

It's John and I are co-presenting, Council Member Morales.

Okay, I'm sorry.

Thank you.

No worries.

Thank you.

Good morning, everybody.

We're excited to be in space with you and to share all of the good work that the Community Investments Division at OCR is doing.

My name is Fahima Muhammad.

I am the Deputy Director for the Office for Civil Rights.

I want to invite my colleagues, John and Mano, to also introduce themselves.

Good morning, everybody.

Thank you, Council Member Morales and the rest of the folk here.

My name is John Page, he, him pronouns, and I'm the Community Investments Division Director, and it's good to be here.

Hi, my name is Manu, I use he, him pronouns.

I am the project lead on the budgetary process, and I'm excited to be here and share a little bit about what we've been doing.

Thank you.

Great.

Next slide.

So as some of you know, the PB process is underway and we're excited to discuss the work and to ensure that the process meets the goals that we set out.

So in this presentation, we will give you some background information.

We will discuss the role and the goals, the process, the roles, we'll highlight some milestones, and then we will review the timeline.

So a little bit about, a little bit of background information.

So the amount that the city is investing in participatory budgeting process has never been attempted in the US.

Our scope is broader than most participatory budgeting projects.

The city's $27 million investment can be used in any combination towards capital projects, programs, services across the city.

Seattle is embarking on a historic community led process, and we're very excited about that.

So just some key background information in 2021. PB shifted from a city ramp process housed in Don to a third party administered process in OCR.

OCR created the Community Investments Division to house PB.

OCR then facilitated an RFP process to select the third party administrator.

The Participatory Budgeting Project, PBP, was selected, and we believe that PBB's process can be replicated and can support future PB processes in Seattle.

So in this section, we'll go over the goals, the process and the roles.

Next slide.

So we have two main goals for this process.

The first one is to invest directly into black indigenous people of color communities consistent with applicable law.

And the second is to increase ownership and participation of people who live and work in Seattle and solutions to the city's pressing needs.

We're confident that the PB process is on track.

Behema, you broke up for a second.

Can you back up just a little bit and start that again?

Okay, thank you.

So we have two main goals for this project.

The first, can you all hear me?

Great.

The first is to directly invest in black indigenous people of color communities consistent with applicable law, and the second is to increase ownership participation of people who live and work in Seattle and solutions to the city's pressing needs.

We are confident that this process is on track to meet these goals.

So during our engagement, our community engagement process, the following five key investment areas were identified housing, physical space, mental health, youth and children, economic development, crisis, and wellness.

Yeah, I'll take over now.

Thank you, Fahima.

So participatory budgeting, PB, getting broke can be broken down by phases, different phases here.

And if you look at this graph, this diagram here, we show seven phases, but the actual PV process is gonna be six, right?

And so we began, we're in the planning phase right now.

That phase includes a landscape analysis, just looking at what's out there in terms of what the city is doing, right?

Also included in this phase is setting up the tech tool that's going to be used to engage with community, right?

And to capture information related to the PV process.

And the tool is called DECIDIM.

It's a tool developed over in Europe, over in Spain, and it's an open source platform.

Also included in this phase is recruitment for committee and work group members, as well as hiring local Seattle-based staff to run the process, well, to operate the process.

Second phase is the design phase.

And this is where the Steering Committee work groups brought together from the community, as well as they're gonna develop the Steering Committee, they're gonna develop the rules book for the PB process.

And the rules are community informed and legally reviewed that would inform the current PB process.

I wanna back up and just iterate that every participatory budgeting process is different.

So I can't underemphasize that, right?

And I know the King County folk are following us and we know Gloria and other folk who were part of some of the work group committees in the community.

So just wanna emphasize that every PB process is different.

The second phase is idea collection.

And this is where community members are engaged through an online platform, through the Decidem platform, as well as in-person events.

And ideas for potential projects will be generated in this phase.

As well as doing this part of the idea collection phase, the IDT, the interdepartmental team that we've developed, We'll answer any questions community we have, and also curing up and ready, ready, ready, representative departments where projects will likely go.

I'm a little nervous, y'all.

They called me off guard.

I'm normally not nervous.

Let me name that.

And hopefully that'll, that'll squash some of that nervousness, council member Morales.

The next phase is the proposal development phase, right?

And this is where we have budget delegates, which are community members, right?

They would take the collected ideas and develop them into feasible and actionable proposals.

And they would have support of the IDT, right?

And the IDT is made up of city department members, right?

Who understand PB.

And the IDT is really acting as, and I get more into IDT later on, is really acting as sort of a technical assistance body, right?

They won't have any decision-making power, right?

Um, and in this phase, also the ballots will be developed, which folk we use to vote on different proposals.

And we get to the vote phase.

Um, this is what proposals from the broader community, um, will be looked at and, and, and, and considered.

Um, and the votes will be through an online as well as a, uh, in-person, um, process.

And if you look at six in this slide, it says council approves winning projects, right?

So the projects, once the projects are voted on from the projects that community deemed, this is what we wanna fund.

This is what we'd like to see happen.

a recommendation of those projects will come to this council to vote on, right?

And to decide on, and to really to approve, right?

We're hoping that they're approved.

And then they would go to the departments to be implemented.

And I said, the PB process is actually a six stage process.

The evaluation is actually part of the PB process.

So, PB process planning, design, idea collection, vote, proposal development, and evaluation.

So, in this diagram, it looks like it's a seven part.

You all's actions is not actually part of the process in terms on the contractor's side.

Mano, can we go to the next slide?

Perfect.

So thinking about roles and responsibilities in the PB process.

So looking at from OCR's perspective and what we're holding, it's being held by SOCR's Community Investments Division.

And what our role is, we ran the RFP process, we selected, we had a community panel that selected, we only had one proposal and it was from the participatory budgeting project, which was they're the experts in North America on running a PB process.

We've convened an interdepartmental team and we're monitoring the contract deliverables and working with PBP.

So in our department, we're not directly responsible for administering the PB process.

The third party administrative PBP, the Participatory Budgeting Project.

They're the administrators of the process, of the PB process.

And they're supported from us with information and suggestions.

And we're deeply committed to making sure PBP meets their deliverables.

We have weekly check-in meetings with them.

Right.

And so we're, this is an iterative process and we're, we're dealing with challenges that come up.

We had a meeting just this morning with PVP and the IDT and just looked at what are the challenges that we see right now and how we're going to get at those challenges.

One of them is language access.

One of them is how do we engage folk with lived experience?

One of them, how do we engage across the digital divide?

And we're extremely confident that PVP can meet these deliverables.

PVP's role as third party administrator, they're leading the PV process.

And they're responsible for establishing and implementing the participatory budgeting process.

And it aligns with best practices and has fidelity to those five focus areas, right?

And the five focus areas is when it will come out of the Black Bridges Research Project Report.

They're also tasked with maximum feasible participation with historically and currently marginalized community across Seattle.

And they're gonna lead and be over a process that results in actionable, the selection of actionable projects that they're gonna recommend that the city fund.

We get to the community's roles.

So the community, so this process is made up of four work groups, right?

And community will sit those work groups, will make up those work groups.

The work groups are being formed right now.

They help create the rule book in terms of how folk, who can vote, how they will vote, right?

And it's gonna align this PB process with impacted community members.

Mano, can we go to the next slide?

Thank you.

So I've mentioned the IDT and the purpose of the IDT is just to primarily ensure that projects proposed by the PB process are feasible and actionable.

And it also, again, operates as a technical assistance body to ensure community members have the tools and information necessary to do their work and not as a decision-making body.

And it offers space to coordinate information flow between city departments, PVP, the consultant, and the community.

And our expected outcomes, IDT member departments will allow for a more seamless implementation of proposed projects because of their early involvement, understanding of potential projects, and alignment.

And this process will have demonstrated, it will have demonstrated a model for transparent, transformative, and accountable government that meets community needs.

Mano, can we go to the next one?

Thank you.

So the participatory budgeting project is working to bring together representation from impacted communities across Seattle.

This includes a steering committee, budget delegates, lived experience and outreach work group, as well as a restorative accountability work group.

And the broader community, Seattle community.

There's also, they have a youth fellowship and the fellows began meeting over the summer.

It's made up of 14 youth, right?

And they went through a series of trainings over the summer and allowing for their schooling, right?

Just their school schedules.

They were meeting really, really frequently.

They were meeting a couple of times a week over the summer and now they're not as frequent.

Mano, real quickly.

So the fellows, real quickly, they're gonna lead youth engagement around this PB process.

They're gonna support and maintain the online platform and facilitate idea collections virtually and in person at Smivians.

Mano, can we go to my last slide?

Well, my next to the last slide.

So just to highlight some of the milestones here, You know, what OCR and PBP, what we've been up to.

So OCR facilitated an RFP process alongside community selected third party administrator and the participatory budgeting project was selected and they're running the PB process here in Seattle.

OCR signed a contract with PBP this past summer.

OCR presented to city department finance managers, various from various departments, finance managers come together monthly.

We presented to them this PB process and talked a little bit about anticipated department roles.

PBP, the third party contractor, administrator contractor began hiring and recruiting Seattle based staff positions and community roles, steering committee, youth fellows, some of the work groups.

And also I began convening IDT core group members and recruiting for a larger IDT body.

And that larger body is the departments where the projects are anticipated to land.

Finally, let's look at the timeline, y'all.

Thank you, Mano.

So as you know, this process, this PB process can be broken down in a set of different phases.

We have the planning phase, which is underway now, and it's going into the fall.

We have the design phase, which follows this planning phase.

We'll pick up late fall.

We have an idea collection and proposal development occur over the winter.

And proposal development and vote will happen during the spring, and funding and final report will take place summer of 2023. Fahima, thank you everybody.

Yes, thank you everybody.

Questions?

Thank you, John and Mano.

Thank you, Fahima.

Yeah, I have a few questions to get us started, and then I'll open it up to my colleagues.

So the first couple of questions are about the youth fellows.

So I'm just going to be asking about sort of a little bit about the work that's happened, but mostly around kind of the process itself for getting going.

Can you talk a little bit about how the youth fellows were advertised and a little bit about how we might support?

So my understanding, let me back up.

My understanding is that 10 of the 14 youth council, youth fellows live in districts two and three.

Three of them live outside of the city of Seattle.

So can you talk a little bit about the steps you'll take to sort of elevate the voices of those who live and work in the other council districts?

Manos, can you take this?

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

So we are working closely with PPP to make sure that the voices of the people, of the youth, especially that live and work in Seattle, are being heard.

A lot of that will have to do with coordinating with other departments within the city to make sure that that takes place.

Other community groups that are present So that we're recognizing that not everybody who is able to live in Seattle also isn't necessarily a part of Seattle.

We imagine that part of the folks, and especially some of the youth may have historical ties to Seattle, but potentially may have been pushed out because of rent costs, which is why I believe the participatory budgeting process included youth who are not present in Seattle.

And I do want to say, oh, sorry, John.

I just want to say, I know y'all have been working really hard to get this contract going, to get the process underway.

There's been a couple of years of work to try to get things moving.

So I really want to honor the work that you're doing to try to get this going and recognize that part of the work, especially this initial phase, is the facilitator themselves.

So I appreciate that.

Did you want to add anything to that?

No, no, no.

You're fine.

You're fine.

Okay.

I do want to talk a little bit about the timeline.

We got a timeline.

I got a timeline in early August.

It looks like things have maybe shifted a little bit.

So if you can talk about whether, you know, is the timeline still in flux?

And my understanding is that the new timeline shows the final project phase taking place in the summer of 2023. The current contract with PVP only goes to the end of June.

So what should we understand about the work in that phase, given that the contract ends earlier than the proposed timeline?

The only delay, so the contract negotiation was protracted.

I need to say that, it was really, really protracted.

But also getting the online tech tool, getting protocol from IT, ran into a small snag, but figured it out because it is an outside software, right?

And so figured out what the protocol was, whether the tech tool, there was a little bit of just not really clarity around what this tool was.

But the contract, Council Member Morales, the contract actually goes to December.

The contract doesn't close to December 31st, right?

Even though their timeline in the contract, and the timeline in the contract goes to June of, the end of June of next year, could be extended by as much as late summer, right?

accounting for this, this, the snag around the protracted contract negotiation, as well as getting the, uh, the tech to a model.

You want to add anything to that?

Yeah, I just wanted to add that most PV processes, because especially a process like this one that has a lot of moving parts, we're engaging with community members.

We're also engaging with this third party administrator.

Lining up everything always takes a little bit more time than originally anticipated.

I think the original timeline was an idealized version of what might happen.

But as John put, we we anticipated that things might go a little longer.

So we made sure that the actual contract date is, end date is a little longer.

But given where our conversations with the participatory budgeting process, it seems like we're getting to a more finalized timeline and we'll have better details for you soon.

Yeah, and I certainly want to acknowledge that this is, as you said, one of the biggest projects, PB projects, that we are trying to do in this country.

I really am excited about the work that we can do moving forward and the impact that we can have.

And we can't expect everything to be set up, you know, set up this new system on a dime.

So I, Council Member Strauss, I see you.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to say, John and Manu, thank you for your hard work on this.

I do want to, I think the Chair has mentioned this, but I'll just reground all of us in this work, that we've been doing participatory budgeting for years.

Participatory budgeting in and of itself is not a new concept.

We've been running it through Department of Neighborhoods, through Seattle Department of Transportation, And what is new is the level and scale that we are endeavoring to do this on.

And I think that this does speak to how direct democracy create.

This is direct democracy.

This is literally deciding where city dollars are going in our own community by the people of our city, the residents of our city.

And, you know, so I just really want to thank you, John.

Really thank you, Monty, for your work on this.

Thank you for your work on this.

Just the only thing I would say is take the time to get it right, because this work is too important to get wrong.

Thank you all for your hard work.

Appreciate that, Council Member Strauss.

Yeah, I think, are there other questions?

Okay, I think the last, oh, I see you, Council Member Nelson, please go ahead.

Oh, thank you very much.

As a citywide representative and in the spirit of one Seattle, I do have to think about how this benefits people across the city.

So my questions have to do with the design phase and we can take this offline, but I do want to have assurance that there will be district representation across the board and that we're talking to people across the city because And how are you going to be messaging to community groups and people, because this is going to be a democratic process, so everybody needs to be aware of it and vote.

Because, so what does that look like?

Is that in the, have the design phases going on through June?

Will we see some of the outreach materials or anything like that?

Or will, are you doing this in geographic phases looking at one district and serving people about what they would, what projects they would like to fund and then going on to the next one?

can just speak to a little bit about that.

There are a lot of, and I'm particularly hopeful that the individuals and organizations that are doing great work that have never gotten city funding before are also represented in this process.

Yeah, thank you.

Council member Nelson.

I will agree and reiterate that I do think it's going to be important that we want to see voices from other districts participating here, understanding that this did come out of the movement for Black Lives, for acknowledging the need to repair the harm done to black and brown communities and to try to stem displacement.

And we have people of color throughout the city.

So that's certainly something that we need to be working on.

And I think what I would like to do, I know we are running late here, but I do think that it's important to make sure that particularly our newer colleagues understand the process.

So I might ask for time for you to come meet with us and Council Member Nelson, I'm also happy to kind of walk you through the process of I mean, the process that happened up to now or the process going forward?

No, what the design process means and the voting and the idea collection phase so that you can understand that a little bit better.

I will also let the viewing public know that that information is on the OCR website if you just want sort of a infographic snapshot of what that process means.

It's not the process, but I think these questions are the, you know, that's why I'm asking them.

Yeah, sure.

So I will go ahead and let the OCR team respond if you have something that you wanted to add here.

Yeah, I think it's always important to make sure that the broader Seattle public is able to access this while also recognizing that there are some communities, especially the ones that are most impacted by the by issues, don't also have the same access.

So although we, you know, we're going to try to make sure that people from different districts are able and we have particular identities and people that we definitely want to make sure are participating in this.

And that's most of the focus, and that's the focus of the Participatory Budgeting Projects engagement tools.

We are also going to be asking for council members' support in really signal boosting some of the information that we'll be putting out there so that if you do know people within your specific districts who would fit really well within this PB process, within some of the work groups or community, making sure that they are able to apply to these work groups and committees would be amazing and would be a really great help for this PB process.

And then also in support of the voting process.

All of this, I'll leave it at that and let John answer any future, any other questions.

And the only thing I want to add, thank you, Ma, I don't think I want to add, just going back to Council Member Strauss's point, we can't mess this up, right?

So he's rooting for us.

You know, we think that this PB process will benefit all council members in terms of how you're able to engage your constituents.

Right?

That's what we think the real benefit for other council members, for other districts.

We think this process is as council member Strauss mentioned, this is a democratic, a direct democratic process.

So we think the process will be beneficial for all council members.

That's all I wanted to add.

Thank you.

I'm mostly interested in it being beneficial to all constituents.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay, so as I said, we will hear next from this team on December 9th after the budget process.

And so we've got some time to get additional questions answered.

I'm happy to follow up with my colleagues to make sure that we're keeping everybody in the loop.

Yes, Fahima, please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you.

I also want to offer that for any council members who aren't at this committee meeting and folks who are, we are happy to have individual briefings and conversations and send over materials to continue the conversation.

Yeah, I just wanted to offer that.

That's great because I'm in the AAPI community was in chambers and I know that they probably had some thoughts and would like to be included.

Thank you.

We'll set up an appointment.

Thanks.

OK, thanks.

OK, we look forward to hearing about your progress at the December 9th meeting.

Colleagues, we do have two more presentations to go, so I'm going to move us to to King County.

And then if we If we can hang on, we do have the Office of Arts and Culture as well, and I do want to hear from them about the work that they've been doing on the race and social justice initiative and want to thank you all for bearing with us.

We're running a little late today, but important stuff to be talking about.

Okay, so Devin, will you please read item 14 into the record?

Agenda item 14, presentation on the King County participatory budgeting program and process for briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

We have Gloria Briggs here from King County.

And I want to say I invited Gloria here because it is very exciting to know that they have recently successfully awarded $11 million to parts of King County.

But I also know that the process was not without its challenges.

And so I asked them to come and share some of the issues that they faced and what kind of course corrections they had to navigate.

and to share what the county hopes to accomplish by shifting some of their resources to the participatory budget process.

So with that, I'm going to hand it over to Gloria and want to say welcome and thank you for being here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Council member Gonzalez.

I just want to say hello to all that are here on the call.

Also, too, I just want to just give just a shout out and kudos to our King County executive Del Constantine and local services director, John Taylor.

And our King County council members as well, who have been constant advocates and supporters of this work.

I'm not going to give you guys the, what is PB background?

Because after the 3rd presentation, I'm quite sure everyone will call already knows.

So, Devin, if you can just help me, let's we'll start at slide number 3. And as I'm speaking, I'm pretty organic with conversation, so please feel free just to raise a hand if you have a question as I'm going.

So the main, where I wanted to start at today, it's back one more slide.

is what's different about PB in our unincorporated King County with what we did.

One of the main things that was different was we had two funds, $10 million for capital projects, and we had $1.3 million for programs and services, which came from our marijuana tax revenue funds.

Then we also had five areas.

So we were working with community members in unincorporated areas of East Federal Way, East Renton, Fairwood, North Highline, White Center area and Skyway.

And all of these areas made one committee.

So one of my main models that I constantly reminded our committee was we are one King County.

And that's one thing that I keep hearing that, you know, everyone on this call the same one, you know, one Seattle.

So that was one thing that we really that was different also to our R.

P. B.

process, it was a community directs action process, which is defined by King county's community engagement guide as community initiates and direct strategy and action with participation and technical assistance from King county.

So, that was a little bit different about our process.

Next slide please.

Devin.

I was a little tickled when I just was hearing you guys talk about the timeline.

This is our current timeline.

And as I say, current is because it's always fluctuating, you know, in fluctuation.

Specifically when we are working and co-designing with community, that was one of the main things that I had to learn was to, we have to move at the pace of community when we are actually in co-design with community.

And we have to uphold that and respect that and so that's why our timeline as well has fluctuated throughout.

So, currently we are here in our.

In this phase, where we are funding our winning projects and this process, it is a pilot.

Pilot program that started about a year ago, and we have been designing as we have been going.

I was actually hired by King County, local services last March, and.

We were already in the process of getting steering committee applications and membership applications submitted to us.

So, I kind of just jumped in and we've been rolling ever since.

So, started back in June of 21 and here we are in.

end of September, and we are currently funding our projects.

And this summer, we had our vote.

And on the 10th of October, that's when we ended our big community vote.

And we were able to announce our awards two weeks later.

Next slide, please.

I just want this to sit here for a minute because this is something that I'm really, really proud of.

This is our 21 member steering committee.

It is made up of, basically we have 97% BIPOC community members.

We have representatives from all over King County.

The five areas that I listed, we had five members from Skyway, five members from the White Center, North Highline area, five members from East Federal Way, and three members from the other areas.

We had a very diverse group.

There were approximately eight English as a second language speakers that were a part of our committee members.

We had about 10 committee members that were associated with local community-based organizations, which was very helpful with doing our outreach.

Also, our steering committee We paid our steering committee members $75 an hour to participate in their monthly or weekly meetings that they came to.

And they also were responsible for designing how we do PB in our areas.

So they actually designed our PB guidebook.

And they also allocated the PB funding to the five areas.

So that was really interesting.

That did not happen overnight.

It was a process where we really had to engage the newly formed committee for one.

to be one, to be whole, so that they could make these very important decisions.

Also, too, we gave them time to learn about the different areas that we are representing and the different needs of each area.

And the biggest thing that I felt great about was, for one, the makeup of the committee itself and then also to the way that they allocated the funds it really showed into genealogy it being intentional as far as wanting to promote racial equity in this process next slide please.

We also had an internal work group that collaborated with community members to launch the PB process.

So that internal work group, they started before I actually was hired.

They helped to do my job description to hire me.

They also helped to just gather all of our internal agencies together so that we can coordinate work and we could all work on this together.

They've also Our internal work group also is still working with me behind the scenes with gathering all of the work groups together so that we can get these projects and stuff funded.

And that's kind of like where we're at now and the funding stays.

But these are the design, the highlights of our design phase.

Does anyone have questions about the design phase?

I don't see any hands raised.

So please go ahead, Gloria.

Next slide, please.

Okay.

This is the way that the $11.35 million budget was allocated.

Skyway West Hill received the majority of the money based from conversation and demographics.

And of our discussions, that's where the needs were greatest.

Skyway has the highest percentage of African-Americans in that zip code.

And they really wanted to just focus on empowering the community and the Skyway West Hill community.

They had a community discussion amongst the steering committee and they took the $1.35 million marijuana tax revenue fund and they divided that with a 60-40 split.

That was something that was really heartwarming to know that people from different areas of the community can come together and make that equitable decision.

Next slide, please.

This was an actual copy of our guidebook.

We produced guidebooks in multiple languages.

We had Somali, Vietnamese, Spanish, and Khmer.

The languages were chosen by the committee members based on the needs of their area.

Next slide, please.

Um, highlights of the idea collection phase, um, we recruited 23 new community members on top of the 21 steering committee.

So, lots of community volunteers.

We had community collaborations between RISP and hands.

different small local community-based organizations.

We held three virtual community meetings where we had idea brainstorm sessions.

We actually had a technical info session as well of how to submit your ideas.

We also had community Dropbox ideas within communities at different locations, whether it's a grocery store, a library.

We had one at the tiny home village.

So we were basically trying to bring PB to the community.

And then something else I want to note in here is we did all of this virtually.

So it's pretty impressive.

Next slide, please.

This is just a screenshot of actual one of the virtual ideas submission info sessions that we were having when it came to ideas submission.

And this is Michelle from acts on stage, who was she was there asking questions about how to get her program submitted.

Idea submitted next please.

So, throughout our proposal development, some of the highlights where we received over 800 ideas that were submitted.

Whether they were in paper or online, then we have the community members that we're working as proposal advocates and the steering committee come together.

They were sorting and rating ideas for almost a month.

Then they prioritize the proposed ideas to select top projects that will be developed.

Then all those ideas that were not selected were moved forward to be referred to King County's community needs list.

And the next slide, please.

More fun just watching us in action, this is actually a proposal development work session.

We used to meet weekly, virtually, and this is how we were actually doing it online.

Next slide, please.

Our voting phase.

Our CIBC, which is a steering committee, they created a voting engagement outreach plan for each area.

So we didn't have a one plan, you know, one plan fits all type of strategy with this.

We were just very intentional about what it was that we were doing, and each area came up with their own engagement and outreach plan.

Um, worked with a lot of the local community based organizations.

They help to host community voting events.

We've had, but we had voting events at Creston point apartment, which is a low income apartment in South Seattle.

We help them at the library, a green bridge over in the white center area.

We were out at parks.

We basically went to wherever the people were.

Next slide please.

Highlights of the voting phases, we held 15 in-person events.

There were over 260 ballots cast, 2,600 ballots that were cast.

This was done in multiple languages.

There were, what else?

45 projects were selected by community.

I can put inside of the link and give everyone a list of the projects.

I'll go ahead and add that.

That was, I think that was one of the most rewarding things that came out of it for me, was at the end, even though it took a lot for us to get to that point.

But looking at the projects that were awarded.

Devin, is it possible that you can put that link into the chat?

It's not working for me.

Yeah, let me do that for you.

Thank you.

And then we can go to the next slide and I'll just talk about what we see there.

But really exciting, it was just really rewarding just to get into community.

And to be honest, when we finally started hosting, when we had our voting kickoff events, that was some of the 1st, that was 1 of the 1st time that a lot of our steering committee members have the actual opportunity to meet each other in person.

Because, like I said, we were doing all of this in a virtual setting, but it worked.

I can just read you some of the projects that I know off the top of my head.

There we go.

Yeah.

Go ahead and advance the slide.

Thanks, Devin.

You can go to the next one.

But some of the ones that stand out for me, there was funding for Acts on Stage, which is a performing arts program so that students in the Skyway area and in the White Center area, they're now gonna be able to have free access to performing arts, you know, workshops and camps.

Oh, this is, okay, I'll stop right here on this picture because you guys were talking about youth advocacy.

This is a perfect example of how can spread through King County.

1 of the things that stands out when I look at this picture, these are representatives who were actually steering committees and proposal advocate members of this process, but they represent the Congolese network and then also to our Latina community.

these individuals were interpreting on the spot in multiple languages.

There's about five different languages that's spoken just from people in this picture.

Then also too, and the bottom kneeling, that is Mrs. Zeta Quintana, whose daughter is also one of the youth advocates for the Seattle PB group.

That type of just spreading, engaging community in PB is really exciting to me to see how it's growing.

But yeah, big kudos to this group of individuals.

Nita, Natita, who's on the left in the skirt, she hosted various different community engagement events.

There was one event where she had a virtual event where there were over 90 people present.

and there were several languages that were spoken.

Mrs. Quintana, her and her family, they've had multiple Latino, Spanish speaking info sessions, and it just really worked out.

And when you allow community to lead their own community, that's where it can be really effective at, that's where it can be really organic.

One of the lessons learned, I had an info session, I had, five different translators ready there.

And we marketed it, promoted it, and it was a very small show of hands.

But then when we let community take that initiative, invite their own communities, you know, to the table, it was a full house.

And so that was like one of the biggest lessons learned that I learned with community engagement is let the community experts and the community leaders do what they do best.

Next slide please.

These are some of the PB awardees in skyway we have pictured Monica Matthews she received rewarding for the life enrichment beyond college tours.

And to the right, that is Toya Taylor, and she also received funding for WeApp Speak with Purpose.

Then we have the picture to the right.

This is a very heartwarming story just behind This group's advocacy, this is these are individuals from the community and they have been working diligently within community over in our West, like, West Seattle, white center area, and they've been working to build a cultural center for the community and they receive funding to do that.

We have 1 of our community leaders came on saying was actually.

The chair, he's actually the co chair for the white center group.

He helped to bring this this community idea to front and there were actual info sessions that were held within their organization at their site.

And those are doors that were opened.

to us by community members.

And if we hadn't been engaged with those community members, we would never have that opportunity.

So that's something that's really meaningful to me.

It's just being intentional of what it is that we're doing and remembering why we are doing PB and remembering whose voices we are there to uplift.

Next slide, please.

These were just some of the brief demographics that I kind of was able to throw together.

This was from the survey that was given from people who voted.

So if you look at Skyway, we had almost 38.79% of our voters were from the black African-American community.

Next slide.

And this one really amazed me.

This is from the East Federal Way area.

They had a percentage of 64.6 black African American voters out of all of their voters who did the response.

Next slide, please.

These are just some of the brief lessons learned.

I'm sorry that this is informal, but just being intentional about every detail of the process and remembering why we are doing PB.

Getting community involved early as well as other inter-agency departments to work and to collaborate on this because it's a really big lift.

Not one person or one department could really do this and to pull this off.

Also, to allow time and space for trust building within your committee with even like, with the consultants, we actually hired P.

B. P. as well.

So have been working very well with them.

They've done amazing job working with us here at King County.

Also to discuss and give time to understand the work ahead and that's just from a steering committee perspective.

That was 1 of the problems that I had ran into and then I mentioned before.

Provide flexibility with those timelines because community works at a different pace than government.

And also to having program support is crucial.

I, I, I'm the only program manager, so I'm the only person in local services that's solely focused on PB, but I'm just really grateful from my colleagues that have stepped up and helped me throughout this process.

including my deputy director, Danielle DeClercq.

She's been very hands-on and helpful with this process.

And one of the biggest lessons learned that I learned personally was hire a videographer to help capture your work and tell your story.

Because there is a lot of great things that happen here that I'm not able to capture because I'm just so busy in the moment.

You know, so that was one of the, and these are great stories, even like how I'm explaining to you, the Quintana family has now, you know, now they have two generations of their family involved in PB.

That's amazing.

You know, and then if you look at, like, look at the programs that were funded, that was amazing.

You know, very transformative.

A lot of these programs and individual organizations that were able to get funding, they probably would never have surfaced if we have done business as normal.

So those are some kind of some of my lessons learned.

And I'm open for questions.

Gloria, thank you so much.

This is really great to see.

Congratulations on getting money out the door.

I think it's important some of the lessons you lift up about being intentional about the details, making sure that you capture.

what you're doing.

And back to something that John said earlier in response to Councilmember Nelson, part of the reason for doing this, in addition to direct investments and helping community identify what they want to see, is that secondary effect of civic engagement.

When we talked last year with some New York City Council members about how this worked there, one of the things that he said is, you know, it's not just that they learned how to do this process and how to, you know, install a streetlight.

They also learned how to engage with government and they learned how to identify who their leaders are and who their representatives are.

And now they're taking what they've learned about how to engage in processes that affect them and their families.

They're taking that to the school board and they're taking it to the board of health.

And they're taking that understanding to everything else they do and really becoming advocates for improving, you know, their community conditions.

So I think this is really important work.

And I'm excited about what King County is doing and really excited about our ability to kind of scale up the work that we've been doing here at the city.

Colleagues, are there any questions or does anybody want to comment on what we've heard from the county?

Salud, Council Member Nelson.

It looks like you're having some allergies.

Okay.

Well, I want to thank you so much, Gloria, for being here and for sharing.

We, I'm sure, will be following up with you and want to congratulate you again.

Thanks so much.

Thank you, guys.

Have a great day.

Happy Friday.

Thank you.

You too.

Okay.

Devin, will you please read the last item into the record?

agenda item 15 office of arts and culture race and social justice initiative presentation for briefing and discussion.

Director Ali Barnes, thank you so much for your patience.

This particular meeting covered a lot of ground about, you know, how we act on our values around race and social justice.

And so I am I am very eager to hear from the office of arts and culture about some of the things that you do to implement that value.

So thank you for being here.

You are muted.

I am now unmuted.

My comment is good morning, or actually almost afternoon.

So it's almost a lunch and learn.

So we are really happy to be invited in this environment of such really enthralling activity around community and around what it means to be a public servant and how we handle and how we approach so many of these very difficult discussions and issues that we share in our communities.

So thank you very much, quite frankly, for investing in us, in this situation, in this council session.

Good morning, honorable council members, our guests, as well as my colleagues.

I'd like to introduce Maritza Revere whom you all know is also joining me Maritza.

Good morning council members or good afternoon.

May I just ask are you all able to see the presentation okay or does it need to be expanded?

I can't tell from my side.

It doesn't it's not appearing in presentation mode right now.

I will fix that.

Thank you council members.

So while we're putting that view into presentation mode, I really want to also acknowledge that as we're doing this Office of Arts and Culture RSJ update, you see myself and Deputy Director Maritza Rivera, but we absolutely want you to know that we have to acknowledge in all of this hard lifting and heavy work, our RSJ focus staff, this brilliant and quite brave staff has been doing RSJ nimbleness, adaption and adoption since 2004. So it's not a matter of an easy lift or a short lift, but one that takes sustained commitment from very brave and brilliant people.

So today we want to share with you two things, our strategic framework, and then also give you a snapshot of some of the impacts that we have been able to listen to and learn about our approach right now to RSJ investments.

And I say our approach right now because RSJ is a living activity, a living document.

And so our strategy is really in three parts.

We have our awareness, our capacity building, slide please, thank you.

Our awareness, our capacity building, and our action.

And so through those three pathways, we're then able to activate and really measure how we approach racial justice, which is all about treatment of everyone, of people across the board, and social justice, which looks at our redistribution of resources.

It also gets in there and really gives a grit to challenging the roots of oppression and injustice.

And so important in every part of this is how we're empowering people in exercising self-determination and participation in the public sector and in their own communities.

And so all of this together, the whole purpose of this strategy, the whole purpose of this endeavor is to continually build our social cohesion.

One of the things, slide, one of the things that we want to share that is so critical to how we think about our RSJ approach and one of our foundational pieces is the fact that we all across arts actually embrace principles that we get from OCR's RSJ anti-racist principles.

And we use those to construct the way that we interact with and approach our anti-racist behavior, our changes, and our positive outcomes.

Highlighting that, in using these guidelines, we ask these critical questions, who, where, when, why?

After we ask that to any of these guidelines, we then say, what action can we take as an arts organization working in the arts section and understanding that we're working in a racist environment?

So for example, analyzing power and leadership, who, what, where, who does it, why are they doing it, where they're doing it.

And quite frankly, a lot of that was shown today, Council Morales, in the discussions on participatory budgeting, because that begins to be participatory thinking, and that is the art of deconstructing racism.

So thank you for, again, for letting us be here.

Another highlight example is when you're looking at learning from history, Remember that history does not start with any one incident.

Racism and anti-racist activity has a continuum, and we have a responsibility to do that part.

So any of the other highlights that you wanna ask questions about, we'll come back.

We're gonna not shorten this, but we're gonna speed it up a little bit because it'll be a short lunch and learn.

Next slide.

So we said awareness, capacity, and action.

Let's look a little bit deeper into awareness.

it has to have positive RSJ outcomes.

That means connecting with communities.

One of the ways that we all do that to get a grounding, almost a truth grounding, is looking at what do we have, what are the documents that all community can share?

What are the documents that are being produced by our partners?

What are the documents that we can use to begin to understand the broader, the deeper art sector.

So this is a highlight of some of those.

The CAPS report, I think you're all familiar with, and it works.

Having community come together long term, this was started in 2013, now means that we have a public development authority called the Cultural Space Agency.

So putting communities together, having a focus program around racial equity and place and people gave us the PDA.

Another highlight from this list that I'll just make is the inclusive creative economy report.

And there it's set as early as 2019. The question we're still answering, how can the city grow?

How can it support retain creatives, while minimizing disparities and and inequality within our creative economy.

That question heard in 2019 and still being worked on by our communities and our office in 2022 and then and talking about 2022. Looking at the PSRC report, it's really clear.

I mean, it said our art sector needs are dire.

It clearly said 26% of jobs are evaporated or evaporating, and that by spring of 2022, 31% of survey respondents were considering leaving the sector in the next one to three years.

So all of this information and the way in which we gather it and the way in which we share it is about listening, knowing what is being said, who's saying it, and who's in the conversation.

Then the most important piece, always our community partners, being certain that they are enmeshed in all of this discussion.

The other active piece After awareness was capacity building and for arts that's a three prong process, the internal within arts, the inter departmental with city departments, arts plus a departments, and then the external communication and the art sector and partners.

So that is the three-legged stool, if you will, that we use for capacity building.

Let's look a little deeper for a moment at the internal connections.

Slide.

This is where, in the Office of Arts and Culture, we're always being aware of who, where we are, time, place, and purpose, people, purpose, and place.

So we know that we're on indigenous land.

We have to acknowledge that.

and be mindful of how that is for people, how we got here and what it means.

We also look at our positions and here the RSJ position was inadequate and we're actually working now to upgrade that position so that we can have a permanent longer term focus on the trajectory that we want to make a positive impact in RSJ as we go about our business of making art work.

The other piece is acknowledging that within our own organization, we have difficult conversations, ones that have been long-term and ones that need continual edification, reiteration, and also solutions.

For our office, there was a letter that was sent out by our black staff to talk with white staff and other BIPOC persons in the office about the microaggressions that were not positive that were in place and that had to be deconstructed immediately long term process.

We call that the blue matrix.

And then also acknowledging that this work is daily and so that we have a self identified ally grouping in our office.

It's high priority and will continue going and being an engaged priority.

and will be maintained as a source of space-making for self-identified folk to have very difficult conversations.

Then also remembering that our community-based mission, that this is driven for us as a funding mechanism and that it's a priority.

Then lastly here, continuing our demographic information.

And then all across the board, all of this, to be shared in community in real time with real people.

The interdepartmental connections is something that you've heard about from folk who are talking about PB.

You can't do it by yourself.

And that's also true in the Office of Arts and Culture.

We mean to always ask our department colleagues, how can arts lean into the work that you're doing in community?

And conversely, How much do you lean into arts?

Here you can see that OCR, we lean into them for RSJ trainings and guidance in the city's focus in RSJ.

For capital projects, one of our major programs, one half of our full house is our 1% for art, and that's our relationship with City Light and with SPU, SDOT, and with parks.

OED, economic opportunities.

Artists are hurting.

They need to know how to sustain how to maintain and how to gain a foothold in building their families, in building their practice, and staying in this urban environment.

With DEEL, we coordinate with our joint nexus with Seattle Public Schools around youth arts and education.

And with FAST here, this is a huge challenge for arts at this point, but working with FAST to look at our WND gaps, Why are our artists and our arts sector population not becoming certified WNBEs and what are the solutions to that?

And with OPCD, we're working with strategic investment fund to make sustainable cultural space investments in a major way.

Slide, please.

And then the third part of capacity building, that external connection, that impact to community.

And we're looking to hear again in the term that you've heard this morning, participatory, but in this case, grant-making, where we actually have our community come in, become that panel, and be active in making the selection process and recommendation on grant awards in the office.

Mentoring and social cohesion for artists through our Artists Up programs and other relationships with partners across King County.

Then also redesigning and looking at our application process, using one portal, making it easy for the broadest possible community applications to be coming into our grant programming.

And then, as you've heard, the rapidity of getting out the recovery funds, we were fortuitous that we have been able to, in 2021, move forward 1.9 million in ECI funding.

So we knew that September money in 2021 out the door would mean that January of 2022, 30 arts organizations, highly BIPOC percentage, would be able to open their doors and be in community in 2022. So collaborating with our art funder partners for culture and other agencies is a critical part of this as well, because we have a shared constituency, whether it's public, budgeting, whether it's public investments in the arts sector, the constituency is shared.

Slide.

So after awareness, after capacity building, the next piece is action.

And the action for the Office of Arts and Culture is leading with race.

We've heard about this.

It's a hard subject.

It's one that at times can be contentious, But the fact of the matter is in a racist society, we have to have hard conversations about who is underserved, when, why, how, and what are the solutionary approaches.

So acknowledging that we need to lead with race in order to tackle racism is something that this office is brave and proud to do.

So leading with race really is an intentional approach to BIPOC and the broader community and building a shared social cohesion.

Slide.

For an example, looking at this is a snapshot from March 20th, March 2020 to March 2021. And this looks at about seven mil in our grant making and public art commissions.

And we've So, of the 457 individual So, of the 457 individual So, of the 457 individual artists, 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35% of that 35 how the money is going, and where it's going we're just starting this, this is a snapshot, and more to come.

But even going deeper into some of the demographic analysis slide please.

We're able to share that of the cumulative award dollars to individual artists that 2.4 million.

Of that, 77% was awarded to 354 BIPOC individual artists.

That comes to 1.79 cumulatively awarded to BIPOC artists during that snapshot period of March 2020 through March 2021. So to invest in the underserved, the under-resourced, the unheard voices begins to help us align our actions, our thinking with our equity goals.

So the unserved BIPOC communities become a reality.

They become visible and they become educated.

And they also learn that the city is a partner.

The city is a place that can begin to push the envelope and to make a difference in what equity actually looks like.

Slide, please.

Now, one of the areas that is a high challenge for arts is our WNBE score, if you will.

The fact of the matter is that we have WNBE eligible artists and arts organizations in 2021 and now again in 2022. And even though in our consultant contracts, 50.1% of all of our dollars in arts are awarded to women owned or minority owned firms, only 2.1% of those are actually WNBE certified consultants.

So we are giving into our equity focus by 50%, but of that, only 2% of those recipients have done the due diligence or the process of becoming WNB certified.

And the same thing shows in our purchasing contracts, 25% of all of our dollars go to women-owned or minority-owned firms.

But again, only 1% are actually WNB certified.

So our action that we're taking on this demographic information and in the ability to provide a solution that begins to provide opportunity to sustain these artists and businesses, we'll be working with FAST to create mentoring sessions for WMBE eligible artists and arts organizations to really support them in completing the WMBE certification.

So the drive for 2022-23 is going to be explaining how and why the self portal for the city or the certification portal for the state can be a tool in the community, in our BIPOC communities, to elevate the visibility and to elevate the financial status and maybe long-term create generational wealth by bringing these businesses into WNDE, the opportunities to earn more for the work that they're doing.

Slide, please.

Another part of action for an arts organization, we're called arts and culture.

Culture is that will of the people to make that artifact.

And so cultural humanity about valuing the differences that are presented by and within a large range of culture is something that the city has been doing for a long term.

So in 2022, an equity focus is recreating that tapestry, putting the color back into the tapestry.

keeping the black and the white and the brown and the indigenous and the diasporas clearly woven into that tapestry for one Seattle.

And so one of the ways that we can do that from the side of culture and art is to have and continue our galleries.

The works that you've seen here that have illustrated the various sites come out of the city's public civic art collection.

We call that the e-museum.

and we'll actually put the link in the chat and you'll be able to visit any of these works or create your own small gallery as you look at this just under 4,000 publicly owned works that are available.

We also have actual physical galleries.

Our gallery arts at King Street Station is showing now and is typically open Wednesday through Saturday.

And as I look out my window in my office I can see and I'm going to wave right now to some folks who are waving at me who are going through the gallery.

And we also as you can see City Hall.

and the Municipal Tower, SMT, and the Ethnic Heritage Gallery.

And then the newest thing is the power station along, I think that's Warren, or is that, no, Denny, that is pedestrian activity and experience.

So putting art everywhere means artists everywhere.

So this is something as to why galleries are so important.

And then, of course, the 1% for Art Program.

This one puts artists' works into our public spaces.

It gets us that spaces, the spaces that we want to be places, and it moves it to spatial justice.

So it's been almost 40 years since it started.

It's been curated so beautifully, and it speaks across our geographical areas, across our communities, and it says artists everywhere is art everywhere.

and begins to build that emotional intelligence toward and visual appreciation towards social cohesion.

And then so a final comment in this Lunch and Learn is something that comes from the American for the Arts.

And that is that art is more than this RSJ narrative.

It's more than statistics.

It's the nonprofit and the profit making arts and cultural organization to remember that they are businesses.

America has been built on small businesses.

Artists have small businesses, artists are small businesses.

The arts really drive commerce to local businesses.

You might stop and look at the sun sculpture at Volunteer Park, but you might also just walk down the hill to 19th and have a cup of coffee and then decide that you're right by the bus and you're also by Seattle Asian Art Museum.

So you begin to do your own personal tour, your immersion in your community, because of one sculpture piece.

And then people actually travel to Seattle to see our works that are in our public sector.

And imagine the kind of efficacy of immersion and involvement that's coming from the waterfront work that's being done.

So people travel to be involved in social cohesion to build communities.

And so our whole focus on our living document, our living activity, that is RSJ, is about social cohesion.

And once again, it's using art to mitigate and solve non-art issues, but every society cannot cure its issues without its artists making symbols that we can all come and gather around.

So small investments, big returns, small businesses, big returns.

Artists are creatives and they're also workforce.

So that's our comment on ArtsRSJ.

And we so thank you, Council Member Morales again for inviting us and for all of the council members and our guests for being on this journey with us.

Questions?

Thank you so much.

This was incredible.

I really appreciate a couple of things.

I do have one question, but I do want to appreciate the work that you're doing, Director, to acknowledge the hard work that RSJ staff have, the hard job they have to try to lift up, to ask these questions, to do work, to move us in the right direction, on top of whatever their regular job is within any of our- I know, right?

Yeah.

So I want to thank you.

I know you've been working hard to try to contemplate how we might reclassify some of that work to be able to keep people on the job.

I wonder if you could talk just a little bit more about why it's important to get our artists certified as WMB consultants or contractors.

What does that mean for them?

What kind of doors could that open for them?

And I'm glad to know that you're working with that, happy to support whatever work you're doing to try to increase that.

But can you just explain a little bit more why that's important?

Yes, I'll tell you why it's important in two words, food on the table, maybe that's three.

But that actually, it's important because when an artist or an arts organization is looking at their profit making side, and they're doing business, they're already making t-shirts, for example, but are they on the roster so that when If the city council wants to have a gathering and wants to have a t shirt that says one Seattle, or maybe that's the mayor's office on one Seattle.

We can all wear it on one Seattle.

If you're on that roster, then you're going to be selected by the city of Seattle, as a W in the to provide that t shirt.

If you're on that roster as a graphic artist, you might have, I'll use myself for an example, may have named Royalty Barnes graphic artist posters, and I'm selling them at fairs and things of that nature.

But if I'm on that roster, and Seattle Public Utility decides that it wants to have this campaign for clean garbage, clean recycling, clean water, it's going to go to that WNBE roster and pull from there.

So this is another tool that artists and arts organizations can have to begin to develop alternative sustainable ways in which to keep food on that table.

So you can take your practice as a non-profit, but you can also be a profit piece.

So in this, the sessions that we're going to be working with fast to develop, We're going to be literally talking about what do all these words in that application mean?

What are the ways that you absolutely have to answer?

There are five questions.

You've got to answer all five of those questions exactly the same or the computerized system kicks you out.

What are the costs to put that through?

Making it easy for folk to understand how to get to the value.

That's why we're working on that council member.

Plus the city needs to have that diversity of expertise and opportunity to engage its artists as creatives and as workforce.

Does that help?

That's fantastic.

And I will say as somebody who 10 years ago was a consultant myself, I gave up on that process to try to become certified because it was complex.

So appreciate any work you're doing to try to reduce barriers to people being able to get certified and get signed up.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any questions or comments for the director?

I don't see any.

Again, I want to thank you for your patience as we worked through a very full agenda today and really do appreciate you sticking with us and sharing the work that you're doing.

Thank you.

It's extremely interesting and thank you for inviting us.

Sure.

Okay, colleagues, I go to the order, Council Member Nelson.

Well, I just want to say thank you.

And I'm really, I was intrigued to hear that so few people are going to be certified that are eligible.

So thank you very much for working to do the outreach so that people know that it can benefit them.

So very much to you and FAST, so thanks.

Great.

Well, colleagues, that is the end of our agenda today.

Thank you all for your patience as we work through all of these presentations.

I think it was definitely worth it to hear from our different departments about the work that they're doing in this space.

With no other questions or comments, we are adjourned.

It is 1228. Thank you, colleagues.

Have a good weekend.