missing title

Start with Bad Bunny.

Oh boy, that's what I was listening to.

I should have taken more photos.

Just remember, take the photos, make the memories.

All right, good morning, everyone.

The March 11, 2026 meeting of the select committee on the library levy will come to order.

It's 9.32 AM.

I'm Maritza Rivera, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council member Juarez.

Aye, I mean here.

Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Lin.

Here.

Councilmember Rink.

Present.

Councilmember Saka.

Here.

Councilmember Strauss.

Here.

Councilmember Foster.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Present.

Chair Rivera.

Present.

There are seven Councilmember present.

Thank you clerk.

Today we'll be hearing an overview of the 2019 library levy from the Seattle Public Library team.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on the agenda or within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Currently we have three in-person speakers and no remote speakers.

Thank you.

Given that each will have two minutes, clerk will you please read the public comment instructions.

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

Each speaker will have two minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they are registered.

We will start with in-person speakers first, then remote speakers until the public comment period has ended.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

The public comment period is now open.

We will begin with the first speaker on the list.

The first speaker is Matt Hillman.

Thank you, Chair Rivera and Council members.

My name is Matt Hillman, and I serve as the board president for the Seattle Public Library Foundation.

The foundation is proud to be the library's nonprofit partner.

We provide above and beyond support for collections, spaces and programming.

The foundation helps fund more than 50 initiatives that produce thousands of free programs and events.

This programming is boosted by levy support that keeps our libraries open, comfortable, and staffed by outstanding professionals.

Yet we know our public wants more of what they love, more access to books, more classes to learn new skills, and more programs for kids and adults to enjoy.

The 2019 levy made a big impact, and now we have a chance for the 2026 levy to make a strong statement about how much Seattle values its libraries.

I love the tagline for the 2026 levy proposed by the mayor yesterday.

Read, grow, belong.

That sums up the library's strategic vision for everyone in our community.

This coming month, you have a great responsibility to ensure our library's future, to welcome more people in to read, grow, and feel a deep sense of belonging.

Thank you for all you do for our city and our library.

Thank you, Matt.

Next, we have Angel Solz and then Ross Baker.

Good morning, Angel.

Good morning.

Good to see you again.

Good to see you.

Thank you, council members.

My name is Angel Solz and I am on the board of the Friends of Seattle Public Library, where I recently served as president.

Our mission is to elevate the library and inspire the love of reading in our communities.

Angel, sorry, would you mind stepping up to that?

We can't hear you and we so wanna hear what you have to say.

Thank you.

Okay, you can start again.

Thank you so much.

So my name is Angel Solz and I am on the board of the Friends of the Seattle Public Library where I recently served as president.

Our mission is to elevate the library and inspire the love of reading in our communities.

Seattle is a uniquely great place to be a reader.

We are a UNESCO City of Literature.

We have so many book clubs, silent reading parties, and amazing bookstores, as you all know.

And we have a truly world-class library system.

The Seattle Public Library works hard to meet the insatiable appetite for reading in our city.

SPL patrons check out 24 books every minute.

That's more than 13 million a year.

That's physical books, e-books, audio books.

We can't seem to get enough.

Book checkouts have surged in the seven years since the library levy was renewed, as I'm sure you know and we'll hear more about today.

It's very exciting to see the use of our wonderful library collections growing at this rate, and we also know how much strain it puts on the library budget.

The Levee is so essential to these collections.

Of course, it fully supports our Peak Bix program, which I'm sure you all enjoy.

And it provides so many other books at the library in many different genres, age ranges, and languages.

It helps furnish the deep, diverse collection we all enjoy.

I'm excited that the proposed 2026 levy would add to these essential reading resources, and I hope and ask that you will use this opportunity to add even more books to the library's physical and digital shelves.

Our city's demand for books is ongoing and is growing, as it should.

Please continue to help our library keep up and meet our need to read and learn and grow.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Angel.

Ross Baker?

Thank you, Chair Rivera and council members.

My name is Ross Baker, and I serve on the Emeritus Board for the Seattle Public Library Foundation.

I'm also a Seattle native, a six-decade user of the library, and a proud resident of District 4. Our city has an exciting opportunity before us as the library successfully concludes the 2019 levy, and we look to the 2026 replacement levy.

Ballot measures offer a rare chance to make deep investments in the large-scale projects our public systems require, especially for capital infrastructure.

Many of you may remember the Libraries for All campaign in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Some of you are too young.

That transformative effort resulted in the building of the world-famous Central Library and the creating or renovating of beautiful neighborhood libraries.

That was more than 20 years ago.

The newest libraries in our systems are turning 20 years Oh, this year.

The city and our library have made many important improvements during the last 20 years because of the most recent levy.

That includes the expansion of the Lake City branch, the climate controls at Northeast, Southwest, and elsewhere.

The current levy's remarkable seismic retrofit of Green Lake branch and the ongoing work at the University branch.

As with any buildings going into the third decade and beyond, the wear and tear is starting to show across the library system.

The library has a long list of necessary maintenance needs and facility upgrades to keep buildings safe, open, and welcoming.

And we have more historic branches in need of preservation and more spaces to reimagine to better serve the community.

I hope that you can seize the opportunity presented by this year's levy to address some of those capital needs.

The next generations of patrons will benefit from investments we make today.

Let's keep our libraries open, inviting, usable, well-maintained, and the wonderful edifices our city's patrons and our residents deserve.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ross.

Any other speakers, Clerk?

Chair, that was the last registered speaker.

Great.

Thank you, clerk.

There are no additional registered speakers.

The public comment period is now closed.

We'll proceed to our items of business.

Clerk, will you please call item one into the record?

Agenda item one, overview of the 2019 library levy for briefing and discussion.

Thank you, clerk.

Colleagues, all right.

Welcome to the first select committee on the library levy.

In the coming weeks, we're going to be reviewing the mayor's proposed 2026 library levy renewal legislation, which was transmitted yesterday, March 10th.

But today, we're looking back at that 2019 levy investments.

Before we start that look back, I do want to thank the Mayor's team, especially Deputy Mayor Brian Surratt and Central Budget Office Director Ali Panucci.

I also want to thank Chief Librarian Tom Fay, the Library Board of Trustees, including President Yasmin Mehdi, Vice President Dr. W. Talley Harrison, and the whole Seattle Public Library's team for their partnership on this proposal.

I want to also, colleagues, thank you for taking the time to meet with me and tell me your priorities as part of this process.

I shared our collective interests and my conversations with the mayor's office as this proposal was taking shape as the 2026 proposal is taking shape.

I truly believe that when we work together, the mayor's office council, the city departments, the boards that are associated with the city departments, that we have better outcomes for all our residents in this city.

And so I really want to thank all of you for that partnership.

I also want to take the time to recognize my amazing team.

I cannot do this work without them.

Nick Duda on the policy side, Jacob Evinger, who keeps me on track, and Wendy Sykes, my chief of staff.

We often leave our staff till the end, but these are the folks that are often unnamed and do all the hard work.

As I know, Chief Fay, you and I have talked about your entire team at the libraries and all the great work that they do, and I've just been the beneficiary of that work for many years.

All right.

Team, I know some of us have hard stops today, so I'm going to say Chief Tom Fay and his team are here with us today to present an overview of the 2019 levy investments.

This is really an opportunity for the city to show our work.

This is how we can let the taxpayers who so generously supported the levy, the libraries through the property levy, know how their tax dollars are being spent.

Today's presentation is a condensed version of the two 2019 levy overview presentations that we already heard the libraries give at the Library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee meetings, the past two committee meetings.

I'll save my comments related to the new levy for our next meeting on March 25th when the Executive and Chief Fay and his team will be back to present on the new levy.

This meeting today is to really ground us on the 2019 levy investments as then we start taking up the work of the new levy.

The 2019 levy investments were categorized in six buckets, hours and access, books and materials, technology and online services, helping children, building maintenance and administration and central costs.

Colleagues, let's move on to today's agenda and learn more about these levy funded services and programs.

And I will say colleagues, this will not be new to anyone who sits on the LEND Committee because we've had this overview.

This is a much, it's a condensed version if you want.

The longer version, I will refer you to the presentations that are on our website for the LEND Committee.

Today we'll get the quick overview, and we really will focus on the 2019 levy investments.

Chief Fay and your team, please introduce yourselves for the record, and then you can get started.

Thank you, Chair Rivera.

I am Tom Fay.

I'm the Chief Librarian for the Seattle Public Library.

Rick Sheridan, Director of Institutional and Strategic Advancement for the Seattle Public Library.

Good morning.

Kay Tang, Director of Library Experience and Engagement for the Seattle Public Library.

I'm Rob Gannon.

I'm the Director of Administrative Services for the Seattle Public Library.

Thank you.

And for the record, I just want to say Councilmember Foster has joined us as well.

Go ahead, Chief Faye.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Again, thank you for the opportunity to present our information on the 2019 levy.

And to start us off this morning, Rob Gannon will provide a library budget overview.

Good morning members of the committee.

As Tom indicated, we'll start with a general overview of the library's budget.

Assuming that the slide presentation is visible.

There we go.

Excellent, thank you.

So again, to begin our presentation, we'll start with a general overview of the library's budget.

The chart in front of you on this slide depicts the Council-approved budget for fiscal year 2026. You'll see that we have a $102.5 million operating budget and a $2.6 million capital budget.

The majority of our funding is provided by the city's general fund, about 58%, and the levy, the current levy, contributes about one-third to our overall budget.

A small portion of our budget comes from other sources, including city-generated real estate excise tax funds.

funds from the generous support of the Seattle Public Library Foundation and also some library gift funds.

We generate a small amount of revenue from things like collecting parking fees at our central library, printing costs at all of our branches, and then recovery of lost items, the fees associated with those lost items.

The bulk of our budget goes to operations.

It provides for staff, which in turn provides all the open hours for our system.

It allows us to acquire books and materials, and it allows us to maintain our buildings.

The library has a small capital budget for major projects and also for equipment acquisition.

Sorry colleagues, we're experiencing a little bit of a technical difficulty with the slide deck.

That's okay, Madam Chair, because you know me, old school, yeah, paper.

You have your paper, I do too, you and I.

I do too, got page numbers, so I'll just, yeah.

I will just say I was mocked earlier by one of my colleagues for printing my presentation on paper this morning.

Do not be mocked.

We're all getting mocked then Rob.

All right.

Looking back over the period of the current levy in this slide, you see both the growth of libraries budget over that seven year period, as well as a breakdown by major fund of how the library budget is comprised.

You'll see a general trend of growth year over year with minor fluctuations in some of those years.

you'll see that the portion of the foundation funding that's thin green slice at the top has grown over the period as has the general fund in terms of amount there's also notable growth in the size of the levy portion much of this growth is built into the levy to account for inflation and increase costs which includes salaries across all library operations but some of it is also attributed to shifts from the general fund on to the levy Thank you, Rick.

This next slide depicts the same time series, those same seven years of the current levy, but the funding here is depicted by percentage rather than actual dollar amounts.

So here you see that foundation funding has again remained relatively constant over the period and the portion of funds provided by the general fund has declined and the levy picks up a notable portion of that share year over year.

As Chair Rivera mentioned in her opening remarks, the levy is categorized by different types of projected spending and this chart provides an overview of how those breakdowns occur year over year.

Both the 2012 and 2019 levies made use of the same distinct categories to delineate how resources would be allocated.

The slide provides broad context to the relative weight of each category.

As you can see, admin and central costs, the tiniest strip of yellow, and helping children, also a small strip in the later years in light blue, makes up a small portion of the levy.

Hours and access makes up the largest portion of our levy budget.

We'll also describe today how building maintenance and technology are used and how those funds support library operations overall.

And then the orange section provides the important slice of how we devote our resources to books and materials.

So we'll cover each of these categories in our presentation this morning, but we'll start our detailed presentation of labby categories and I'll turn it back to Tom.

Thanks, Rob.

We will be starting our first accomplishment in areas, the collection area.

And as we talk about collections, collections are physical and digital books, history items such as historic photos, maps, postcards, and other ephemera.

And then we have unique collections like our African American collection at Douglas Truth.

We have our LGBTQ plus collection at Capitol Hill, aviation and zine collections at the Central Library, and many more.

We also collect DVDs and CDs, still popular for those preferring physical media.

We have physical and digital magazines and newspapers, including free access to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, and of course, our Seattle Times as well.

Streaming music, movies, and TV shows through Hoopla and Canopy are also available.

And to highlight some of the collection, we have had, as noted here, we are the 10th largest circulating e-collection in the world.

We have a voracious reader base here in Seattle, and they enjoy their access to these materials.

And it has also been a good, pardon me, a good indication of the shift towards e-books and e-audiobooks, especially during the pandemic and, pardon me, post-pandemic.

During the period of this levy, we've grown our collections from 2.4 million to 2.9 million.

Around two million physical items, one million digital collections, excuse me, and one million digital items.

Collections also include our peak picks and special collections, which we'll talk more about in some upcoming slides.

We've also increased our language access.

We've purchased these world language materials in Spanish, Ukrainian collection, Portuguese collection.

We've just recently added Dari to English and Pashto to English board books for kids at the Central Library in Beacon Hill.

We've increased our translation and trans-creation of communications materials such as library card applications, welcome emails, and other transactional emails.

and of course we've also added our new mobile app, which also has material or information available in other languages.

We've increased our access to local history.

We continue to acquire new materials, including the vast Paul Door Pack collection, famous for Seattle now and then, and we were working on many others.

And these digital items now contain 33,000 within our collection.

Here we'll show the spending by funding source from 2020 through 2026. And I'll turn the next section back to Rob.

Thank you, Tom.

The next category we'll look at is building maintenance.

So as we look at this category, here again, a broad overview.

In straightforward terms, the library uses these resources to address needs in three broad areas.

We do major maintenance, which is significant projects that alter or upgrade our buildings and their internal systems.

We do routine and scheduled maintenance.

This is the everyday work of maintaining our buildings so that they're suitable for use.

and then of course we do repairs.

These are issues that emerge and require prompt attention.

The levy provides funding and much needed support in each of these areas as we work to keep our 26 branches, the central library and our maintenance and operations center in the best possible condition, ready for library service, keeping it safe, keeping it ready, keeping it accommodating to our staff, to our patrons and all the public.

Our building portfolio, as we heard in public comment, runs to cover the needs of buildings that are now 20 years old and growing to a handful that are more than 100 years old.

Thanks Rick.

There have been a number of notable accomplishments over the seven year or the six plus year period of our levy.

This includes two major seismic retrofit and remodels.

The first at our Green Lake branch, which was completed in 2025. And in the ongoing work at our university branch, which we are confident is going to open later this year.

So we're looking forward to sometime in the late summer, early fall.

We've also done a number of ADA improvements, including improving access and number of restrooms, entrances and work on elevators and escalators.

We've included, or excuse me, we've increased our ability to be a climate resilient organization.

Our Green Link branch was recently certified as LEED Gold certified.

We've done electrification projects to transition away from fossil fuels and old heating and electrical systems.

And we have now proudly maintained or installed air conditioning at 22 locations.

We do all sorts of everyday building maintenance including major repairs and renovations.

Most recently we completed the Greenwood re-roofing project and this is a symbol of our aging infrastructure that things as common as roof repair and replacement is necessary across all of our branches.

I think the next slide shows just a small, excuse me, shows an overview of the funds that we use for building maintenance across each of the fund types, general fund, levy, and private funds.

You can see that there's a good, healthy support from the general fund, but the levy provides an increasingly important portion of our overall maintenance spend.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Rick, who will talk about our next category.

So the next levy category we'll examine today is that of technology and online services.

The Library Levy is an important funding source for our technology and online services efforts.

It allows us to provide the public and staff the technology that they need, such as computers, printers, laptops, self-checkout stations, and catalog stations across the system.

It supports critical access to the internet, whether via our SPL network, both wired and wireless, and our hotspot device lending program.

The Levick facilitates our digital security, funding both staffing and monitoring tools to keep our system safe, which is especially important in this world of growing cyber threats.

And lastly, it offers needed resources for our capital IT efforts, which includes the major network infrastructure that underpins the library's work.

Turning to highlights of the items delivered through technology and online services, thanks to Levy Resources, the library has increased access to technology and digital tools for the public.

Computers, Wi-Fi access, printing and copying, and scanning are available at all locations for patrons to use.

Additionally, Wi-Fi hotspots are available for checkout by the public as well.

All of these offerings are especially important in a world that is increasingly digital and where a lack of access cuts off residents from participating in the larger world.

We've also released a new mobile app that patrons can use to browse our catalog, check out physical and digital books, and further explore SPL resources.

We're proud to note that this has been downloaded over 25,000 times via Apple and Android.

The levy additionally has funded improvements to our technology systems, our infrastructure, and our security.

Prior to our 2024 ransomware attack, we'd already begun investing in this area.

As you can imagine, that the attack only accelerated our need to invest more.

We recently hired a cybersecurity analyst to grow and mature our program and have deployed additional tools to protect the system.

Additionally, SPL has installed new network switches system-wide to improve the stability and performance of our network, and we're preparing to launch a new integrated library system later this year.

This is the technological backbone of all library operations, and a new system will provide a better lending experience for patrons and for staff.

And our last slide in this area is one that shows levy funding compared to general fund and other private funds devoted to technology and online services.

All right.

Thank you, Rick.

The next category is open hours and access.

Library staffing is what allows us to keep our libraries open and provide all of these services.

The levy funds 25 percent of all library positions.

By providing library open hours, we provide community access to 27 safe and welcoming public spaces, over 1.8 million physical books and other items, information services staff who answer many thousands of questions each year.

Through our Ask Us service, we answered over 37,000 questions in 2025, including questions about hours, services, research requests, program information, and much more.

We have free public meeting rooms at 22 locations, free private study rooms at 17 locations, thousands of free programs each year, and access to free Wi-Fi computers, device charging, assisted tech, and much more.

Finally, our buildings act as critical cooling, warming, and clean air centers for the community during adverse weather conditions.

Open hours at Central also provide access to two music practice rooms, rentable meeting rooms for private events, a Level 8 art gallery, courtesy phones, and an assistive technology lab called our LEAP Lab.

As we look at library hours, we currently offer 1,398 system-wide hours per week, a modest increase over 2019 hours of 1,377 per week.

That means around 8 to 10 hours of service a day at our locations.

14 locations are open seven days a week.

12 are open six days a week.

and we determine these hours based on patron usage, community need, staffing capacity, and union contract obligations.

Stabilized open hours have been really what we have focused on over the course of this levy and over the last number of years.

We certainly had some challenges.

System-wide closure, of course, due to COVID-19, followed by a challenging hiring environment during the Great Resignation.

followed by citywide hiring freeze and some cuts to our general fund allocation.

However, in 2025, we introduced fixed schedules.

This helped both stabilize open hours for our patrons and provided more predictable schedules for library staff.

So when we consider increased library access, one of the main accomplishments from this current levy is going fine free.

In 2020, the levy funded the elimination of overdue fines and we found that disproportionate impacts of overdue fines in some of the areas of the city, particularly in neighborhoods with lower median incomes.

The change restored library access for 18,000 patrons whose accounts had been suspended.

It was a huge win for access.

and for those who are concerned about library materials being returned, patrons continue to return items at about the same rate.

We still require items to be returned and while we charge lost item fees for items not returned, we also waive those fees and restore access if and when the item does eventually find its way back to us.

Only about 8% of items checked out are overdue at any one time.

The other item we added during this period is the 24-7 holds pickup lockers at seven locations.

This allows patrons access to our collections at their convenience.

These truly allow you to pick up your requested materials 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The other access improvement was automatic renewals for items without holds.

You can have these items renew up to three times.

I know for me that is very helpful as I sometimes forget that I'm coming due.

Many libraries have transitioned to this and have anywhere from two to five renewals.

This helps automate the process for patrons and improves their overall experience.

And it does not impact our circulation statistics or those waiting for materials.

We also increased our security personnel during this period.

The levy funds nine security officer positions of the 24 total security officer staff.

This particular chart shows the general fund library levy and private funds dedicated to hours and access.

And I'll turn the next portion over to Kay.

Awesome, thanks, Tom.

Okay, so our next levy category in our presentation is Helping Children.

This was a new category created by City Council for our 2019 levy, and it provided dedicated funding for one particular program, and that was our Kaleidoscope Play and Learn.

If you don't know about this program, this supports children, parents, and caregivers in developing a love for reading at a very young age.

It is prioritized to our communities that are impacted most by systemic barriers, and it supports school readiness, language development, as well as social skills.

These are 90 minute guided play sessions that we hold at seven of our library locations across the city, and it is offered in multiple languages.

Just some highlights, the library supports nearly 300 play and learn sessions each year across the city, and that means that's about 7,000 participants.

When we surveyed patrons, 83% of parents and caregivers said that the program helped them understand the kinds of activities that support their child with school readiness.

This was a really impactful program, and we could see this particularly in our Southwest region of Seattle when a King County grant that helped support Play and Learn sessions ended, and that ended in 2022. SPL staff worked with the city as well as our foundation partners to increase funding to help support that continuation of that program.

and thanks to that support, SPL was able to step in, and we now have coverage in Delridge, New Holly, and South Park.

This next slide shows us the funding resources by breakdown, and that is it for our Helping Children section.

Thank you, Kay.

We'll conclude today's discussion with a look at our administrative costs and central costs.

Administrative costs provide funding for one part-time levy analyst, three-quarters of an FTE.

They perform the high-level analysis and the reporting that you see each year from the library and how it has utilized the levy funds.

It also provides funding for two part-time financial analysts at half FTE each, and these also support to actually support the distribution of levy funds and all the accounting and adjustments needed throughout the course of the year.

This category also helps fund our central costs that are provided by the City of Seattle.

This was added to the levy during budget development in 2023. It includes central rate-based allocations, including City HR, Seattle IT, and FAS.

Departments receiving these allocations are positioned to budget for them each year, and the levy does support this in a particular apportionment of the funds from the levy.

In 2023, the budget office evaluated the library budget and determined that the central costs should be allocated to the library operations funded by the levy, consistent with the same practice of assigning those central costs to the general fund.

Central costs for 2024 and 2025 are included on the next slide.

This slide shows the numbers year over year for administrative costs and central costs.

And that ends our brief overview.

Thank you, Chief Phan, thank you.

all for the presentation and the overview of the 2019 levy investments.

As you can see colleagues, there were many.

I will say that in terms of, I want to highlight one piece that I think is critical of the many pieces that are critical, but each library branch works within that neighborhood to really assess the needs and interests of that neighborhood.

so they partner with the constituents that live in those neighborhoods as they're determining what programs would go in that neighborhood.

And I think that piece is important because they're not trying to do a one-size-fits-all approach to the programming that happens at each of these branches.

They really work within the community there in those branches that serve those branches to determine what programs should be there so that then it's not gonna look the same in each branch and that is why, because they work with the folks.

So sometimes when you might see a slide, you're seeing a snapshot and you might be wondering why are these programs here and not there?

And maybe you might be concerned, but in fact, they're working with those constituents in those neighborhoods to determine what is going to best serve their needs and that is what they do in those branches.

So I just think that's an important aspect to this and one, that anyone who's watching in our constituents should really know.

And we thank your staff for doing that.

Okay, colleagues, do you all have, as I said earlier, this was meant to be, it's almost like a soft launch because we're not yet talking about the new levy, but really wanted to make sure that we showed our work on the past levy and how important the levy is to the library overall.

We all love our libraries in Seattle and we want to make sure that we're supporting the continuation of the services that the libraries provide to all of us.

Any questions?

Councilmember Strauss?

Thank you, Chair.

Just as you said, this is the overview of what have we done already.

I'll make a few brief comments right now and then we'll just continue looking forward.

I'm currently at my district office that is in the building that is the Ballard Branch Library.

And a lot of what Director Fay shared about the The book return and pickup that is outdoors right here, it's here.

It's really helpful.

I see people using it all the time.

So many of the programs that you talked about, I see people utilizing every day.

I also want to highlight you did the impossible in some ways and restored the Green Lake Branch Library with its historical protections and really made a gem of a resource for so many people around all of North Seattle because Green Lake really is the center of everything up there.

And so just wanted to take this moment to say thank you for all the work that you've accomplished so far and you've set us up strong to be to take on this next levy because you've demonstrated good results.

So just want to say thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Juarez, you're recognized.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And thank you for being the Chair.

I remember chairing this committee and doing the levy.

So thank you to Tom and Rick and Rob and is it Kate?

I didn't catch her name.

Yeah, Kay.

Kay, thank you.

Kay, thank you.

Just a few comments.

First of all, I want to thank Rick for, I never heard the term, but now I'm going to use it physical media.

So magazines and newspapers, so I'll be using that term now.

Yeah, so thank you for that.

It makes me feel really old.

I want to clarify a few dates.

Was it 2019 when we started the reading program?

Because I know that I went to the one on Lake City.

Was that what you said, 2019?

The Kaleidoscope Play and Learns.

That was created by City Council in the 2019 levy.

I'm not sure the start date.

I think it...

It did start in 2019. 2019, yeah.

So the map that you showed though, I thought that it expanded beyond, because I know that there was one in Lake City for sure.

So the map that you showed, that's up to date then?

So we can have more expansion up in the north end?

Because I have three libraries in D5.

So yes, and remember in 2019, we did get it started.

2020 saw the pandemic and most program efforts stopped at that time as we picked it back up.

We were looking to see where we had partners that could help provide that service.

That's why you see probably a different map than what you might have remembered as we started in 2019. We also added additional sites during the levy.

The King County no longer funded about three of the programs here in the city, and so we were able, with levy funding, to pick those additional three sites up at that time.

And those are, I believe, were in the southeast or southwest portion of the city.

Hey, Tom, I think you know my next question that's coming.

You've got to have a few more north of the Ship Canal if your map is indeed up to date.

That's just a note.

Put a pin in it.

Just a thought.

We have three libraries.

I've gone to at least for readings at Northgate Library with the little ones.

And I don't think I'll do that again with the kids, because I don't think I was a big hit.

But if we could talk about expanding that, I would really appreciate that.

We have a lot of communities that use access, as you know, through libraries in D5, particularly Northgate as well.

And we have the Northgate Community Center there as well.

So if that's something we can talk to offline, I would love that conversation.

And then again, was it in 2022 when we eliminated late fees?

Because you said it, but you said it too quickly.

I couldn't remember the date, year.

We actually eliminated them in 2019. It was the one thing we were able to get started in January of 2019. Yes, it was, excuse me, not 2020, January of 2020, my apologies.

Just three months before the pandemic hit, we were able to eliminate those fines.

So when do we make the announcement when we said that we would eliminate late fees with Mayor Durkin?

I'm sorry, Councilmember, I didn't hear the first part.

When do we make the announcement with Mayor Durkin when we eliminated late fees?

Wasn't it 2022?

No, we actually, you and I were standing there with then Chief Librarian Marcellus Turner when we announced the 2019 levy is when we announced the late fees.

Okay, so I'm trying to remember all these dates when all this happened, because as you know, the fall of Western civilization did not occur when we got rid of late fees.

So I hope those people out there who sent angry emails in Texas to me got over it.

So I'm happy to hear, because that was one of my questions I was going to ask.

I'm so happy to hear 18,000 people got back to having access to the library, which is public.

that's where our tax dollars go and the public nature of that is keeping it public and public means access so thank you so much for that Tom you know we all took a beating for that yes we did yes we did and everyone was mad at me blah blah blah okay get over it we did it it worked just like we thought these public spaces are so critical the Waterfront Seattle Center libraries, all these public, that's why they're in our general fund and our job as electeds is to keep them public.

So thank you for that, especially looking at the pie on the budget that a majority comes from the general fund, and then of course the levy, then private funds.

And then a last question, two questions.

For my colleagues and myself, and I used to know the answer to this, but I think I need to have a refresher very quickly.

What information can you give us that we can provide in our citywide newsletters from your comms department or your media of events.

I know that people aren't gonna actually go to line to go look and we all put out weekly newsletters online and other council members do social media as well.

Can you provide us with things that we can put into our newsletter so people can use our libraries?

And again, I have three in my district alone.

Can you do that first?

Councilmember Rick Sheridan, we are happy to do so.

Obviously, you know, any way we can amplify the opportunities that exist within the library system in terms of programs or services, we are happy to share that information with council offices so that you can help us in that task of making sure that people are aware of everything the library system can offer.

And certainly, I will ask Kirsten Nelson, who is our government relations person, to connect with you to make sure that you're getting the information you need.

We do have a marketing team that does put together emails for patrons.

Essentially, people can sign up for them if they're interested in youth programming or they're interested in sort of a general adult programming.

We have a regular series of emails that go out that constituents, patrons can sign up for so they can be fully in tune with what the library is offering as programming services.

But we're happy to connect with you to give you more information.

and not just me, I don't need to, just send an email to all of us saying, hey, here's the stuff you can put in your newsletter.

This is how we want to amplify the public use of the library.

So the PowerPoint that you gave us today that we have, we can, now that it's in the public realm, we can post that in our newsletters, correct, Council?

Yes, yes, Council Member Horace.

Great, I'm excited to hear.

Okay, and my last question is, and this is more of a personal one, but how do we donate collections of books As you can see I have a ton of books and I'm downsizing a lot of and I want to I want to I gave some to some El Centro and I gave some to some tribal libraries and historians so I'm wondering what I can give back to the Seattle Library and how we do that and that could be in our newsletter as well how do we donate stuff back including art I don't know if you want my art but

So I will say we generally don't collect art.

However, when we're talking about books, if they are books that maybe are older books, manuscripts, things like that that have historical importance, those are areas that we might want to collect in for special collections.

When we talk about general collections of books, our friends of the library are great.

book collections, and they distribute them through a number of ways.

It could be to the Veterans Hospital, it could be their Books for Teachers program, if you have books for young children.

They're a great partner in all of this, so we'll make sure that you have all the information there for yourself and or for your constituents as well.

And then a quick follow-up, Madam Chair, if I may?

Yes, of course.

Two quick ones.

So you mentioned Paul Dorpat, right?

Yes.

Is he still involved with the library and being like a historian and doing information stuff that he does?

No, he has donated his full collection to the library.

And then at this point, we have been working for the last two years, a little over two years to digitize that collection.

It's a vast collection of material, so it will take a few years to fully be digitized.

So without going into the whole history of Mr. Dorpat, let me just say this, and I mean this in a positive way actually, and this is why I was talking about the donation and what I want to get from tribes, is Mr. Dorpat was a witness for the state in a little case called US v. Washington.

and the shellfish case that we tried and his analysis of course and history and pictures was important but the tribes didn't have access nor no one was containing and maintaining their history, their books their oral tradition all these things we didn't have so that's kind of the tribal aspect here that I wanted to encourage and maybe you can think about this in your library strategic planning to reach out to tribal libraries and because I know the University of Washington has a huge collection of written oral tradition art that we go beyond art in history and books and writings journals and all those things and I remember thinking that you know again Other people wrote our history and now are using it against us.

But either way, we won.

But my point was, that's where I was going with the kind of like, how do you donate?

How do we get word out?

Not just to the city of Seattle, but to people read our newsletters who don't just live in the city of Seattle.

And for me, I have a huge readership of tribal tribal members throughout the Northwest and elsewhere.

So that's my point on that one.

I just want to make sure that we put that out there and that that's important for us.

And then the other thing was, I know that you don't collect art, but I know that you have a beautiful Marvin Oliver picture, original, I think at Bitter Lake Library.

Are you aware of that?

Yes, there are.

We have both public art and we have some art that we had collected over the years, early on in our history of collecting things.

So yes, we have a variety of art within our spaces.

Yeah, I've been wanting that more of an Oliver one that you have at the library for years.

So that being said, yeah, it's just a beautiful piece.

But anyway, so thank you so much.

And thank you, Madam Chair, for indulging me.

Thank you, Council Member Harris.

And thank you for always uplifting the important work of your prior colleagues and Mayor Durkan for that matter, because I was going to say about the waiving of the fines.

That was something that you and Mayor Durkan championed, which was really important.

And you heard Chief Faith say today that that had no impact on circulation, which was the big concern, I think, that folks had at the time.

And I understand those concerns, but you can see how it didn't have an impact seven years later.

And it was something that was really critical to ensure that folks have access.

And then also the other complaint was that people would return the books, but they actually do return the books because when they had to pay, they weren't returning them because they were afraid of the fees and they couldn't pay for the fees.

But once those were gone, folks did do return those books as well.

So both those things did not prove to be true.

And in the interim, Mayor Durkan and you and other council members that supported that, you know, had a huge hand in providing access.

And I think that's important, Council Member Juarez, because I think as electeds come and go, we remember the investments, but we don't always remember the electeds the investment that made those investments that were so critical to people.

So I always appreciate you uplifting the work of your prior colleagues, whether it be in the mayor's office or on the council, or even in our native communities.

The important contributions I so appreciate you doing that.

That is really critical.

You know, just a quick note, Madam Chair, that, you know, in Indian Country leadership is shared and it's continual and we uplift everybody.

And I know you don't like using the word uplift all the time.

We share that leadership because and we honor those that made the path for us to move forward and we do the work and we tell the truth, as Uncle Billy would say.

So I'll end on that.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

We tell the truth.

That is so important.

Councilmember Saka, you are a recognized friend.

Thank you for waiting.

Thank you, Chair.

And first off, Chair Rivera, I want to thank you in advance for your leadership and stewarding us through this very important process.

I appreciate your terrific partnership and collaboration so closely with me and my office.

even before this process officially kicked off, and excited to continue our strong partnership together throughout this process in the coming weeks ahead.

I also want to thank Chief Fay and your team here for sharing out this really important overview of the expiring 2019 levy.

I want to thank the Mayor's Office for their partnership on all things library so far.

I don't have the benefit of sitting on the main council committee that oversees libraries, but thanks to the chair, There was a much more fulsome briefing on this a few weeks ago that I had the pleasure of sitting in on and got a chance to dive deep and learn quickly and quickly get up to speed.

And between that and our offline conversations, Chief, and supplemental conversations with our central staff experts like Eric and others, we're able to do that.

feel very prepared and ready to enter this, you know, the formal sort of council deliberations and review process.

So really appreciate your partnership.

During that time, a couple weeks ago, during the more kind of fulsome overview, I asked a lot of questions, a lot of pesky questions.

And appreciate your patience and grace and, you know, sharing your insights there with me on those.

Those questions and, you know, what we learned and the conversations that we had offline as well really formed the basis for kind of how I'm going to be approaching this current levy.

And so, distilling all those pesky but very thoughtful questions down to three high-level priorities for how I'm going to be approaching the review of this proposed levy package.

It's really three things.

First is advancing digital equity and closing the digital divide, doing that by expanding broadband access to communities in need, especially working families.

You can do that in part by promoting digital skilling initiatives, helping people navigate computers and things like that.

The second thing I'm gonna be looking for is expanding access to vibrant arts and cultural experiences.

Brick and mortar library locations will always be a thing where people gather and should be welcome.

That said, we are an increasingly digital world and we need to meet people where they're at from a digital perspective.

And access to information is also access to vibrant arts and cultural experiences in and around our terrific area here.

And so, you know, digital access to the Seattle Aquarium, for example.

Are we expanding those kind of programs as chair of the council committee that oversees the Seattle Center?

I'd like to see more partnerships with some of the Seattle Center organizations.

I don't know offhand, for example, if Pacific Science Center is one of the partnerships, but expanding access meeting people where they're at, and letting more people enjoy the many wonderful, vibrant arts and cultural civic experiences that we have here.

That's number two.

Third and finally, good old-fashioned super-duper important, but also boring to some capital upgrades, capital improvement projects.

We have a backlog of maintenance and modernization needs across our city.

In this context, library, but it doesn't just include libraries, and you probably know that I'm not particularly interested in continuing to defer those important capital maintenance and modernization needs, so making sure we have sufficient investments to do that is very important to me.

One canonical example in my district that I'm going to be closely examining is the historic West Seattle branch in the Admiral District.

It is a 100-plus-year-old historic Carnegie building and those in the know know exactly the significance of what that means.

Carnegie Building, amongst other, maintenance, modernization, renovation needs.

The West Seattle branch needs that I learned at a minimum, potentially seismic upgrades, accessibility improvements, climate resiliency changes, basic preventative maintenance, window restoration, interior refreshes, safety and security upgrades, continued HVAC improvements, The list goes on.

And not to say all those things need to be substantially addressed in this levy, but that building, that facility in particular that we all know is in need, is 100 plus years old, Carnegie Building.

I'll be closely reviewing the levy package proposal for the adequacy and sufficiency of investments to that building in particular.

Also, you and I previously talked about we're kind of spitballing some cool ideas to better promote digital skilling initiatives, including you mentioned there's prior partnerships with companies like Amazon, for example, getting them in the High Point branch in my district or even the South Park branch to give more people from different backgrounds opportunities to, you know, digital skilling initiatives and ultimately these professions.

So be close in reviewing for that.

But in any event, all that is to say, Really appreciate you all for taking this important first step in our broader process to helping us put an exciting package together for voters to consider.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Saka.

All right.

Any other questions, colleagues?

All right.

Then I'm going to thank Chief Fay and Rick and Rob and Kay all for being here and to the members of the audience for being here today.

to listen to this important overview and showing our work to the public so they can feel great about the investments that they're making because ultimately we're asking a lot of our taxpayers and so it's really critical to me that we are telling them what we're doing with their money so they can continue to feel good about a continued investment and this upcoming levy that I, for one, am very, very excited about.

because we want to continue to support our important libraries.

And there's a lot that we don't always have time to present.

So it's really important to hear from you colleagues, you know, both in our meetings and I know that you need to show your work from the dais to your constituents on what you're working on.

There's a lot that we can talk about and we want to make sure that we're getting responses to your questions.

about all the work that they're doing.

But council member Saka, I know all the points that you've made that library is addressing a lot of those things and it's important for you and your constituents and the public know in what way.

So we will continue as we move forward with this to make sure that you and others have information about this really important work that you are highlighting for us today.

that I know are things that you care about and you mentioned.

And thank you for coming to the line committee, even though you don't sit on line committee, everyone's always welcome.

I know I sent out an email in particular about, or I said it during our briefings, please come, we're gonna have this overview.

So I appreciate that you did come to that.

That's extra meetings for you.

but that just shows to the public and to your constituents how committed you are and I appreciate that.

Not to say other council members aren't equally committed who weren't able to make the meeting, but both are true.

So, all right, colleagues, thank you very much.

Let me get to the end of our meeting here.

All right, if there's no objection, oh, sorry.

Okay, seeing no further questions, this concludes the March 11 select committee on the library levy.

Our next select committee meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, March 25th at 9.30 a.m.

That's going to be a really exciting meeting.

We're going to have the executive here, Chief Faye and the team again from the public libraries to present the 2026 library levy.

If there's no further business, this meeting will adjourn.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

Hearing no further business, it's 10.35 a.m.

and this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you for being here today.

Sorry, I got ahead of myself.

I thought you had already adjourned.