Libraries, Education, and Neighborhoods Committee 4/22/2026

All right, good morning everyone.

Good morning!

On this rainy Seattle morning, the April 22nd, 2026 meeting of the Libraries Education and Neighborhoods Committee will come to order.

It's 9.32 a.m.

I'm Maritza Rivera, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Foster.

Here.

Councilmember Lin.

Councilmember Rink.

Present.

Vice Chair Hollingsworth.

Present.

Chair Rivera.

Present.

Four council members are present.

Great.

Good morning again to colleagues, to those of you watching on the Seattle Channel, and to those of you who've joined us in chambers.

Today, we will start the confirmation process for Department of Neighborhoods Acting Director, Quinn Pham.

The Mayor's Office will introduce Director Pham and then you will have an opportunity colleagues to ask questions after.

But before we get into that, we will begin with public comment.

So on to today's agenda.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We'll now open the public hybrid comment period.

Public comment 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 six in-person speakers and one remote speaker.

Thank you, clerk.

So we will give each speaker two minutes.

We'll start with in-person speakers and then go to speakers online.

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 60 minutes.

Each speaker will have two minutes.

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

We'll start with in-person speakers first and 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.

Thank you, clerk.

All right, all mics are live.

So if you wanna step up, I'm gonna call a few at a time and you're welcome to step up to a mic.

Jamie Lee, Mike Stewart, Sue Talca.

Thank you, Sue.

All right, Jamie.

Good morning.

Good morning, my name is Jamie Lee and I'm here with my co-ED, Jared Johnson, on behalf of the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation Development Authority.

We are here in support of Quinn Fan's appointment for Director of the Department of Neighborhoods.

I first met Quinn 12 years ago when she was on my hiring committee to work at SCIPTA.

She began her time at the Friends of Little Saigon soon after, and over the years, we have grown together as leaders in the community.

I'm so proud that she's able to serve in this role for her city.

In her time at FLS, I watched her work with different government departments, community members, and small businesses, all while growing a small organization from the ground up.

Anyone that knows our lives and community development knows that we pretty much have to work with anybody and everybody that impacts our communities.

It's not an easy job, and we have to work with everyone, and that's how it goes.

I watched her learn and grow and adapt to whatever was thrown her way with a practical mindset and balanced decision making.

In addition to the small business work that Quinn and I have done together, I think our largest and most impactful achievement is the Little Saigon Landmark Project.

Skipta has had the privilege of being side by side with FLS for a decade to make this project a reality.

Not only is it one of the most valuable partnerships that we have as an organization, we have been impressed by the ways that the Friends of Little Saigon has been able to address community needs, concerns, dreams to make this project a reality.

We are so proud to break ground later this year, and while Quinn will be here at the city when it happens, her heart is still very much in the project.

While we're sad to lose Quinn as a partner at the Friends of Little Saigon, we are excited to continue to work with her in her new role as director of the Department of Neighborhoods.

I look forward to her bringing her approach to partnership, neighborhoods, and an overall love for community to the rest of the city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jamie.

Mike Stewart, then Sue, then Matt Hayashi.

Hi.

Hi, Mike.

Welcome.

Good morning, committee members.

My name's Mike Stewart.

I'm executive director of the Ballard Alliance, a neighborhood improvement organization that represents hundreds of businesses and thousands of residents in Ballard.

I'm pleased to join today in support of Quinn's appointment as the Director of the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods.

Over the years, I've had the opportunity to work together with Quinn and her role as Executive Director of the Friends of Little Saigon, and I have always found Quinn to be an excellent partner and collaborator as we work together to advance important policy initiatives.

Quinn is an outstanding communicator, a strong leader, and she cares passionately about all neighborhoods throughout the city.

I have no doubt that Quinn is the right choice for this role, and I encourage you to confirm her appointment as Director of the Department of Neighborhoods.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mike.

Nice to see you.

Sue, Matt, and Maiko are next.

Go ahead, Sue.

Welcome.

I'm Sue Taoka.

I'm not anything right now, but I have had many, many, many years working in the International District in the little Saigon area in community development and community development work.

I will say that Quinn is one of the outstanding young leaders in our community.

She listens.

She's wise beyond her years.

She understands the complexity of working in a community and also working with the public sector, which cannot be, is not an easy thing to do.

She's one of my favorite people.

I'm just really sad that she's not going to be at FLS, but the city is better for it.

Having her work for you is gonna be amazing because she listens, she cares, and she understands the complexity of community.

And that in and of itself will help the city a lot.

But we will miss her in the community.

So we'll see her around.

So thank you.

Thank you, Sue.

Maiko and then Lauren Lundberg.

Go ahead and welcome Mark.

Matt.

Thank you.

Yes, Matt.

Ekoha Kayashi.

I'm here to support Director of Hems confirmation here.

I've been a community member and have had the privilege of working with Quinn both in her role as director of Friends of Little Saigon and her as a leader in the neighborhood for the advisory division advisory group.

and I'm just so pleased to say that I've been a witness, Quinn has a very unique leadership in that she is both incredibly kind and like Sue said, incredibly good listener but such so powerfully effective.

And we're talking about in a neighborhood that is one of the most important places in the city, not just because of the challenges that neighborhood continues to face, but because it is the last ethnic neighborhood, historic neighborhood in our city.

And with those challenges, we've seen Quinn just do tremendous things in the community.

We're really, really proud to support her and we're gonna continue to support her as she steps into this new role.

Thank you.

Thank you, Matt.

Michael Winkler-Chin and Lauren Lundberg, and then we'll go to online speakers.

Welcome, Michael.

Nice to see you.

Good morning, council members.

Nice to see you.

I'm Michael Winkler-Chin, similar to Sue Taoka.

I can't remember what she said.

I'm nothing right now.

I have nothing right now.

I'm here today to speak in support of the confirmation of QINFAM for the director of the Department of Neighborhoods.

I've known Quinn 16 years, I don't know, like 83 years maybe, 16 years, and she started off as the Economic Development Coordinator for the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority.

I actually think she probably volunteered in college as well with the organization.

The thing that I...

can speak to about Quinn is that she really understands the complexity of neighborhoods, especially ones that are so important to certain communities.

She is able to deal with the good, the bad, and the ugly, of which there is a lot when you work in certain neighborhoods.

She is an extremely good listener, and then she takes what she hears to help form strategies, to understand the problem, and then gets really tactical about what you can do to make the situation better.

Because it's not just, I mean, you can come up with all kinds of things about positive intent and all that, but can you actually implement the thing that's going to make it better?

And Quinn has an ability to do that.

Do not think that that good skin underlies a lot of naivete.

She does have good skin.

It's oily.

So with that, I'd like, you all are so lucky.

The community loses somebody, but that's okay.

You're not that far away and we will keep bringing you food, Quinn.

Thank you.

Thank you, Maiko.

Lauren Lundberg.

And I will say, Maiko, you were a former director of the Office of Housing, so most recently.

So I'll give you recognition for that.

But you were, and we were lucky to have your service, so thank you.

Lauren Lundberg.

Thank you.

Good morning, Council.

My name is Lauren Lundberg.

I'm the Deputy Director of the Soto Business Improvement Area, and I am here to express my strong support for the confirmation of Quinn Pham as Director of Department of Neighborhoods.

I've had the opportunity to work with Quinn during her time at Friends of Little Saigon around the neighborhoods surrounding the Stadium District and the many impacts that we all experience due to large events in our neighborhoods.

Quinn brings a deep commitment to community engagement and her experience working directly with diverse community demonstrates her ability to listen, build trust, and translate community voices into meaningful action.

When strengthening connections between residents, businesses, and local government is more important than ever, her leadership would be a significant asset.

Quinn has consistently shown an understanding of the unique needs of neighborhoods across our city and a dedication to ensuring that all voices, especially those historically underrepresented, are heard and valued.

Her collaborative approach and thoughtful decision-making makes her well-suited to lead initiatives that foster stronger, more resilient communities.

I am confident that Quinn will serve with integrity, compassion, and effectiveness as Director of the Department of Neighborhoods, and I urge you to support her confirmation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lauren.

All right, we'll go to online speakers.

David Haynes, please press star six and you may begin.

All right, thank you, David Ains.

Out of all the neighborhoods, you all choose Little Saigon, the headquarters of fraudulent food stamp purchases, prostitution, and prolific drugs, with shady characters hiding behind some of the slum owners of the buildings between Chinatown.

And, you know, I didn't call in for this, but it sounds like there's a fill-in-the-blank guarantee.

It's like how many businesses that are corrupt is she friends with, you know?

Like I said, I didn't call in for this because it's not fair.

There's nothing else on the agenda because the library has real needs for improvement.

And I don't hear any conversations.

It's like you all are waiting for the money to come in before you start investing and improving the libraries.

And some of them, you literally need to build new ones instead of constantly patchwork fixing these dilapidated inflated Carnegie as if you're doing the BIPOC community a favor, keeping them stuck way back in the past with some warehouse echo concept of keeping people awake in the library.

But it's not fair that the Library Abusive Union, who invested most of the money in personal space and privacy for themselves while leaving all of us to put up with all the behavioral crisis and drug addicts in the library that are a spillover from bad public safety policies, that the librarians are too afraid to call the service providers because the service providers are failing in their outreach to get somebody a shower expeditiously, but they pick them up, you know, instead of like saying, oh, here's a flyer, you know, you got to go today.

But it's not fair that we have like a prolific amount of concerns inside the library where you can't sit down and enjoy yourself because there's all these people bothering you and because of the designs of the library are ill-suited for their purpose.

And it's like you're taking community and forcing other people into other people's personal space, like some deviant perverted misinterpretation of policy.

Chair, that was our last registered speaker.

All right, thank you.

I want the record to reflect.

Council Member Lynn is here remotely with us.

has joined as well.

So thank you, Council Member Lynn.

And then I just wanna do a quick check, cause I know there are a lot of folks in the audience.

If you didn't get a chance to sign in, but want to sign in and say something, let me know.

All right, then there are no additional registered speakers.

The public comment period is now closed.

Chair, oh, sorry.

Oh yeah, you can say something, sure.

Sorry about that.

I didn't see your hand go up.

Thank you.

Come on up.

Thank you.

All right, ready?

You may begin.

Let's see, hang on.

Susan, you may begin.

Thank you so much.

Hi, I'm Susan Liu, and I'm here to speak, endorse on behalf of my friend Gwen Pham.

I am so excited about her appointment.

She is a leader that the city has been waiting for.

She has both the ability to hold strategy and invest in long-term change and the humility to connect with people one-on-one over eating pho, but as a competition.

She comes with grace and kindness and authenticity and integrity.

She comes from a neighborhood that needs more attention, but because of her vast experience in the CID, she understands issues at a granular level, on a people level, and a systematic level.

I highly endorse her appointment.

I am so excited that she will be leading our city.

Gwen, for the win.

Thank you, Susan.

And thank you for bringing the energy this morning on a rainy Seattle morning.

So I appreciate that.

All right, now there are no additional registered speakers.

The public comment period is now closed.

We'll proceed to our items of business.

And as acting director Pham and Mark Ellabrook with the mayor's office join us at the table.

I'll say a couple of comments.

Chair, we need to read the agenda item into the record.

Thank you, clerk.

Will you please read the agenda item into the record?

Agenda item one, appointment of Quinn Pham as Director of Department of Neighborhoods for a term to December 31st, 2029 for briefing and discussion.

All right, thank you, clerk.

The item has been read into the record.

Now I'll say my remarks and then I'll turn it over to the table.

Mayor Katie Wilson has appointed Quinn Pham as the Acting Director of the Department of Neighborhoods.

This meeting is the first of two.

We usually do two meetings for appointments as part of the appointment process for her to become the Director of the Department of Neighborhoods.

I get the pleasure of meeting with Director, Acting Director Pham as part of our regular check-ins and I'm so glad to have gotten to know you in this time.

and I look forward to getting to know you even better as this process goes on and as we continue to work together.

Today, the Mayor's Deputy Director of Operations, Mark Ellerbroek, will be introducing and present Acting Director Pham.

Colleagues, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions today and also my office sent out an email to your offices last week asking you to provide written questions for her to answer and she will be responding to before our next meeting, which will be on the 13th.

So let's get started with her introduction.

Introduce yourselves for the record and you may begin.

Great.

Good morning.

Mark Ellibrook, Deputy Director for City Operations in Mayor Wilson's office.

Good morning, seeing all of you this morning.

Thanks very much, Council...

Committee Chair Rivera and to Council Members, Council President Hollingsworth and Council Member Lynn, who are on the phone, and then to Council Member Foster and Rink in the room.

I want to start by saying this is such a great introduction.

I almost feel like I don't really need to say a whole lot to introduce Quinn this morning, but it is my pleasure to be here.

I also want to add as an aside to two people who I have known a long time, Sue Taoka and to Maiko, two people who are nobodies anymore in our community.

I just want to say thank you so much for coming this morning.

It's good to see both of you.

I am pleased on the 35th anniversary of the Department of Neighborhoods to introduce Mayor Wilson's nominee for the Department of Neighborhoods, Quinn Phan, this morning.

As you've clearly heard from all the speakers this morning, she has deep community roots and strong relationships in our neighborhoods, specifically in Little Saigon, but also throughout, as you heard from council members.

She also has strong executive public leadership, something that I think is so important when you lead a department, one that has such strong connections to community Quinn has served as a community leader for 14 years as a leader of a local nonprofit, shaping local policy, working with Southeast Asian artists and cultural practitioners, as well as increasing investments in BIPOC communities.

She has served most recently as the Executive Director of the Friends of Little Saigon, which is a key partner with the city in a lot of the improvements and the connections that we are working on in that community.

Something that you may not know, which I actually was reading, which is great, is that Quinn actually has a unique personal connection to the Department of Neighborhoods.

She was part of the inaugural cohort of the People's Academy for Community Engagement, or PACE, in 2012. For folks who may not know, the PACE program is actually a program designed by the Department of Neighborhoods to help community members understand how government works and how to navigate and create change.

and to have a member of the inaugural class now be the Department of Neighborhood's director feels like a circle coming all the way around, so I'm excited for that.

She brings a clear belief that when residents and local leaders shape policy and investment, the outcomes are equitable and lasting and aligns very strongly with the Mayor Wilson's vision that Seattle is a place where every person, every background, and every neighborhood has the opportunity to flourish and shape our city's future together.

A couple more comments and then I will actually turn it over to Quinn for the reason why we are here.

But Quinn is a first generation immigrant to our community.

She's the daughter of small business owners and she's the mother of two.

Under Quinn's leadership, Mayor Wilson is confident the Department of Neighborhoods will continue to strengthen the trust between community and government and deliver real impact across Seattle neighborhoods.

So I think with that, I respectfully ask for your support for her confirmation and I look forward to the conversation we will have this morning.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Ellerbroek.

Acting Director Pham.

Thank you so much, Mark, for the introduction.

And thank you, Committee Chair Rivera, for having me before committee today.

And thank you, council members, for being here.

A very special thank you to my friends, husband, and community members who showed up this morning to support me on this rainy day.

It's an honor I do not take lightly to have people come here early in their day to rally for me.

Like, wow, I think their goal was to make me cry.

And I think you kind of succeeded, but I'm gonna try to hold the tears back.

So again, good morning, everyone.

My name is Quinn Pham, she, her.

I am a proud first-generation immigrant from Vietnam who grew up in Kent and was raised by Seattle.

My journey is defined by the places that I call home, some distinct, some overlapping, but all critical to how I move in the world today.

Some of my most vivid memories are from weekends I spent taking the Metro 150 bus route with my grandma to the Chinatown International District from Kent.

I can still feel the chill of the coolers on my face at Viet Hoa or lamb seafood as I'd make a beeline for the snack aisle.

Some of my favorite snacks were like the lychee jellies and the rice candies with the stickers in them.

After grocery shopping, we'd stop at the video store for the latest Paris by night production and grab some banh mis at the deli.

For us, this wasn't just a shopping trip, we were building community.

My grandma had a greeting for everyone, and we got to know many of the business owners by name.

These all-day adventures show me what it looks like for when a neighborhood truly belongs to its people.

As my family gained more mobility, we began to explore Seattle as tourists, every chance my parents had time to take off from running their business.

I always knew the city was special, but that didn't really click until I began working on the ground.

I realized it wasn't just about the beautiful landscape or the buildings, it was about the shared experiences and the people who hold those spaces together.

Today, as a mom of two toddlers of mixed cultures, I see how challenging it is to uphold and pass down our traditions.

It requires a village to do it.

And these places with businesses, cultural centers, services, parks, third spaces are really essential to how many of us build and establish our identities and communities.

My most transformative years were spent in the CID, as you've heard.

This neighborhood raised me.

The community is my extended family.

It's where I learned the importance of intergenerational connection, activism, and the delicate balance of preserving culture while navigating growth.

In my work with the Friends of Little Saigon, I learned that elevating the needs of my own community served as a blueprint for helping all communities vulnerable to major systemic changes.

For the past decade, the public perception of Little Saigon has been defined by a decline in safety and a loss of economic vitality.

While the neighborhood is home to nearly 100 businesses, almost about 25% of those storefronts currently sit vacant.

My community has lost essential services such as medical and dental offices providing in-language care alongside beloved food businesses like Seattle Deli and most recently Fresh Fruit Bubble Tea or Lakka.

The challenges facing this neighborhood continue to compound largely because we lack the resources and the agency to control the changes occurring around us.

from high displacement driven by outside developers to an increased concentration of drug use and behavioral health issues.

Friends of Little Saigon began as a small group of individuals determined to reclaim the present and future of this neighborhood.

I started by bringing community members together around single causes, such as advocating for a neighborhood park.

From there, we organized events funded by the Department of Neighborhood Small Sparks Grant that served as a platform to gather community feedback and inform residents about local changes.

This feedback created the space to cultivate a collective vision for the neighborhood.

I collaborated with community members to translate that vision into a strategic plan focused on building the capacity to make it a reality.

This evolution led to the establishment of Friends of Little Saigon as a community development organization, which then conceived the Little Saigon Landmark Project, a vision for a dedicated cultural center.

Our focus was not merely to fund the project, it was to ensure that the community owned and controlled it.

Ultimately, this work was also never just about the neighborhood, it was about creating a model for others.

This commitment led me to become involved in the Seattle's Equitable Development Initiative, where I served on the interim advisory board to help develop the funding structures and policies that support vulnerable communities citywide.

It has been a long road, but the defining strategy was sustained, persistent community engagement coupled with a strong partnership with local government.

I relied on city grants and programs alongside investments from individuals who truly cared as deeply about the success of this neighborhood as I did.

While the funding was essential to move this work forward, money alone was not enough.

Success required true collaboration between neighbors and leaders, shared strategy and technical assistance.

Most importantly, it required a genuine willingness from our city partners to elevate and place value on lived community experience.

and that is one key value of the Department of Neighborhoods.

We invest in the power of communities to forge their own solutions.

We trust those closest to a challenge to know what works and our role is to support those community-led solutions.

The Department of Neighborhoods, DON or DON, however you call us, was established in 1991 during a rapid period of growth.

At the time, communities of color were navigating immense change and growing frustration that the character of their neighborhoods was being overlooked in favor of economic development.

People pushed for a different relationship with government.

They wanted a system that invited them into decision making, one that saw communities as partners, not obstacles.

For the last 35 years, DON has bridged the gap between City Hall and the community by investing in legacy programs such as the Neighborhood Matching Fund, awarding 2.3 million to 112 community-driven projects across Seattle in 2025, preserving and landmarking significant cultural assets through historic preservation and leveraging pea patch gardens to build community and increase food security by providing 768 multicultural families with plot fee assistance, generating over 33,000 volunteer hours and donating 41,000 pounds of produce to local meal programs.

Don has also expanded reach and civic engagement through community liaisons, community engagement coordinators, and our award-winning equity engagement advisors for exceptional leadership in dismantling institutional barriers.

Don has helped improve community members' relationship and interaction with city government through the People's Academy for Community Engagement, PACE, We have also staffed and resourced the Indigenous Advisory Council, Seattle Renters Commission and Community Involvement Commission to ensure that community members have a direct impact on the policymaking process.

And lastly, we are invested in community capacity building to address, develop and implement neighborhood level community safety initiatives.

On the surface, this might look like a mashup of programs, but they share a common thread.

They were born from community need.

They exist because the city recognized we cannot achieve our goals without building trust and sharing resources.

These are just a few of the essential programs Don offers.

Although the department's vision is clear, Don must continue to evolve if we are truly to serve Seattle.

And I want to take the lessons I've learned on the ground, strengthening one special place while lifting up others and apply them to every neighborhood in our city.

To scale these efforts, I believe in holding a big vision, but I am even more invested in the small, intentional steps to get us there.

A neighborhood cannot thrive through the efforts of a single person or entity.

It requires every individual to find their role and take action.

I learned this quote from community, it goes, which translates to mean, a single tree is too small to form a mountain.

Only when many trees grow together can they form a towering peak.

So here I am as the acting director of the Department of Neighborhoods, My vision for this term focuses really on three key pillars.

First is to strengthen relationships by building deeper trust within Don, across city departments, with the mayor's office, this council, and most importantly, the community.

Second is aligning our collaboration, ensuring that Don, our partners, and other departments are working in sync rather than in silos.

And lastly, to evaluate for impact by reviewing our processes to ensure that our strategies match our current priorities and they're yielding felt results for our communities.

to establish Dawn as the central hub for civic engagement across the city.

Our goal must be to bring people closer to these different levers of power.

We will do this through intentional incremental change.

I believe Dawn has the right capable people to implement a bold strategic plan, one that builds on the 35 years of progress and is ready to forge ahead into the next 35 years.

So thank you for your time this morning.

I look forward to writing the next chapter of Dawn with you all.

Thank you.

Thank you, Acting Director.

And thank you, Mark, for being here and presenting the Mayor's Choice for Director of Dawn.

Colleagues, as I said earlier, we're gonna collect, my office is collecting questions from your offices so we can send to Acting Director FAM as part of this process.

that she can respond to, but if you have initial questions or comments, happy to take those now before then.

and I know she'd be happy to take any questions or hear any comments.

Councilmember Foster, you are recognized.

Thank you so much, Chair Rivera.

I just will just say a quick comment that it's just such an absolute pleasure to get to hear your vision and to get to have you as Acting Director and I'm looking forward to the conversation today and the follow-up and just so much of what I heard today from folks at Public Comment echoed what I know to be true about you as somebody who has such a strong vision, such determination, and somehow still manages to be a collaborator.

And I just really wanted to say that I remember when we met like almost a decade ago when you were, I think, coming in as executive director of Friends of Little Saigon.

And so it was just really special to me to kind of have, I had a little moment today.

I was like, huh.

look at us now.

And so I just wanted to say I'm looking forward to this conversation and I so appreciate your leadership over the last decade and I'm looking forward to your leadership in the years to come.

Thank you, Council Member Foster.

Council Member Rink, you're recognized.

Thank you, Chair.

I am just so excited about you coming forward in this role.

And so I wanna say first and foremost as well, thank you for your leadership across the past decade of work in community.

I know our office has had the immense privilege of working with you and your role at Friends for Little Saigon.

And I want to just, again, state my appreciation for also your dedication to equity, people, and communities.

It is really outstanding and incredible.

So really excited that your appointment is coming before us.

and I do have a couple of questions for today.

And I know this will be a part of a process and excited to learn again more about your vision for the department, but wanted to ask a couple of questions about your vision related to community safety and capacity building programming for Dawn.

Great question.

Vision is still evolving.

But as you can tell from our work together, for some reason I always get pulled into community safety conversations.

And I'm actually, I'm glad for it.

I've learned a lot through the process of engaging with different stakeholders around what safety means to them, because it means so many different things to so many different people.

and a safe and healthy community includes various components, especially when it comes to creating an ecosystem for a neighborhood.

I think we need a lot of different essential services, businesses and residents to play a part in keeping their neighborhoods and communities safe.

and so in Don's role, we're really here to help build the capacity of community to define what safety means for them and bring in the different departments and partners to make that vision happen.

So really we're here to provide the resource and to support and the guidance, but I think the community already knows what they need and what they want when it comes to safety.

I really appreciate that and I elevate that question just because of your work with the FODEP initiative and I know my office got to join alongside you all just last year really unpacking that and running a really incredible workshop in community alongside so many different partners and so Really excited to continue to unpack that and appreciate that answer.

And it's also news to me that you were part of the first cohort of PACE, because I did prep a question on PACE, which just makes this question even more impactful.

Just how do you see a vision or a future for that program, especially given that you are a part of the first class?

Yeah, it also doesn't dawn on me that this has become full circle, like I haven't actually reflected that much on it, but thinking through it, there's so many good things when you build better understanding and learning how our systems work and who the people are behind our local government and decision makers.

and being able to do that early on in my career was a really big value because that helped guide how I understood my relationship to my rights and how to work with local government and how to navigate certain portals.

And so I always encourage folks, I've actually, in my previous role, I encourage my staff to be part of Pace and they've all really enjoyed it.

and I know the program continues to evolve every day and I'm looking forward to working with my team to see what that looks like in the future because I think we need to continue to grow and expand it and bring more people into understanding how government works and how to access it better.

Really appreciate that.

It's a tremendously important program.

And now more than ever, it feels like the opportunity and importance to really have community connect with City Hall is just tremendously important.

So thank you so much for your continued leadership and excited to learn more about your vision as we go through this process.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Ring.

Councilmember Lin, you're recognized.

Thank you chair and don't have any questions at this point, but just wanted to say how excited I am for this appointment.

My apologies for not being able to be there in person with you all.

And just on that last point about, you know, public safety and community building, you know, I'm super excited for your leadership in that regard.

It is difficult to work across all the different departments and to work with the businesses and nonprofits and community members.

And, you know, you've shown your skills and ability to do that.

to truly build community, to build those relationships, which I think are essential, and look forward to getting to work together.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Lynn.

Council President Hollingsworth, you're recognized.

Thank you, Chair.

And my apologies for not being able to be there in person today.

But thank you, Acting Director.

Really appreciate your presentation.

And then obviously we got to work together a little bit, you know, safety concerns and figuring out how to include more community voices connected to the city.

And I actually, I don't have a question, just rather a quick comment.

As I, for DON, Department of Neighborhoods, have always been a great resource for the community to include folks that don't have the access to, you know, Seattle Department of Transportation or Seattle Parks and Rec.

you know, those traditional channels that those departments go into.

And Don, I always feel like, is the womb of Seattle, the word of mouth, where it might not always be, you know, a group that is organized, but it's like, hey, we do door to door.

We're connected with these neighbors to make sure that they have access to these city departments when we're shaping neighborhoods.

And just your commitment to continuing that, I know you have that commitment, continuing that work to connect those folks that don't have the access that traditional organizations or community groups or even just nonprofits, just your everyday person can feel like they're empowered to have a voice when they're shaping their neighborhoods, I think is really important.

And I know you believe that too as well.

So thank you for your leadership.

Looking forward to working with you as well again.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, any other questions or comments?

All right, then I'll just add, I am so looking forward to part two of your confirmation and all the great work that the department does.

And I see a lot of Department of Neighborhood staff here in the audience.

So I wanna acknowledge all of you.

Thank you for being here in support of Acting Director Pham.

And I also thank you for all the great work that you do in community.

You know how grateful I am for all the work that we've done together since I've been here and for all, more importantly, the work that you do in all our neighborhoods across the city, in all our districts, including the district I represent.

And I wanna say, because it came up, the FODEP initiative, that was really a partnership out of Don with community in Little Saigon and really about, it's about community led public safety efforts as director, acting director Pham said earlier.

And it's really such a key piece to the neighborhood and to public safety efforts across the city because we know that the public safety efforts when we involve community have better outcomes.

and so I know it's something that you, Director, have been working on in your role when you were at Friends of Little Saigon and something that you'll continue to do now, not just for that neighborhood, for other neighborhoods across the city as well.

So thank you.

Thank you to your staff.

Thank you all for being here.

And I look forward to the May 13th, part two of your confirmation.

Thanks for being here.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

All right, colleagues.

Let me get to my final here, part of my script.

All right, since there are no further questions, this concludes the April 22nd meeting of the Library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee.

Our next committee meeting, as I said earlier, is scheduled for May 13th at 9.30 a.m., where we will take up the second part of Acting Director Fom's confirmation.

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

Alright, seeing nothing else, it is 10.15 a.m.

and this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you everyone for being here this morning.